Effects of channel wall material on thrust performance and plasma characteristics of Hall-effect thrusters

The effects of channel wall material on Hall thruster performance and on plasma characteristics were investigated. A laboratory-model Hall thruster THT-III was operated with three channel wall materials of BN, BNSiN and BNAlN. Both the discharge current and the thrust were affected by the nature of the channel wall materials. The measured axial distributions of wall and plasma potentials, radial and axial electron temperatures, and electron number density near the channel walls showed that the wall material affected ionization region and ion wall loss in the channel, resulting from secondary electron emission, although ion acceleration region was determined by the axial distribution of radial magnetic field. The difference in discharge current between channel wall materials was attributed to the difference in axial current density near the inner channel wall, depending on secondary electron emission.