Anomalous conductivity and secondary electron emission in Hall effect thrusters

This paper is devoted to the study of the effects of electron-wall interactions on cross magnetic field electron momentum and energy losses in Hall effect thrusters. By coupling a semianalytical model of the wall sheath similar to models used by several authors in this context, with a two-dimensional hybrid simulation of a Hall effect thruster, we find that the cross magnetic field conductivity enhanced by electron-wall collisions and secondary electron emission is not sufficient to explain the conductivity deduced from experiments. Calculated current-voltage curves including electron-wall collisions from a standard sheath model as the sole anomalous conductivity mechanism do not reproduce the measurements, especially at high discharge voltages, and for various wall ceramics. Results also show that a one-dimensional description of electron-wall collisions with a constant radial plasma density profile as used by many authors leads to an overestimation of the contribution of electron-wall interactions to cross magnetic field conductivity. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.