Performance Evaluation of a 40-mN Hall Thruster Using Laser-Induced Flourescence With Comprehensive Error Analysis

The laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) diagnostic with highly saturated stimulation scheme was conducted to investigate the propulsion performance of a Hall thruster. A Gaussian inverse filter was employed to isolate the Doppler shift and broadening from a measured LIF spectrum by deconvolution. Besides the average velocity and temperature of the singly ionized Xe, parameters about the overall propulsion performance were also evaluated in this work, which indicates a relatively ideal working state with average ion efficiency for acceleration above 60%, comprehensive average velocity of 18 950 m/s, plume divergence angle of 37.26° and ionization degree of 83%. In addition, error analysis in the LIF measurement was conducted quantitatively and detailedly from different aspects, which is not included in previous research. Results show that the average velocity precision is rather high with a high-quality signal, typically with a relative error about 0.64% under the signal SNR 43.96 dB. Especially, the error by laser output fluctuation can be remarkably restrained by a highly saturated stimulation scheme in this article.