Velocity Plume Profiles for Hall Thrusters Using Laser Diagnostics

This research built a non-intrusive laser diagnostic tool using Laser Induced Fluorescence (LIF) and absorption techniques to measure the velocity and density plume profiles of low powered Hall Thrusters. This tool was then applied to a Busek 200W Hall thruster to validate the performance against previous research on the same thruster. A laser frequency sweep through 834.72 nm produced LIF signals for ionized xenon -collected at 541.9 nm - in the thruster plume and absorption data outside the plume at a neutral transition at 834.68 nm. The absorption data provided a baseline reference to calculate the axial and radially velocity of the ions in the thruster plume using the Doppler shift. Initial results compared favorably to published values.