Department of Systems Integration, Yokohama National University
Department of Micro Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Kyoto University
Division of Systems Research, Yokohama National University
抄録
We have fabricated needle-shaped emitters on a Si wafer by a MEMS process, and measured the voltage–current characteristics and the frequency dependence of a bipolar pulse voltage for ionic liquid electrospray thrusters, which can be mounted on nanosatellites (≤ ~10 kg). Although the extracted current did not increase with increasing number of emitters, probably owing to the lack of uniformity of the emitters fabricated, we have demonstrated that the emitted current depends on the gap distance between the emitter and the extractor grid electrode, and low frequencies of the bipolar pulse voltage are desirable for thruster operation. Moreover, the Bosch process is required for fabricating a reservoir of ionic liquid, which prevents undesirable electrical short circuits, and the minimum emitter pitch to prevent loss of ion beams to the extractor is estimated to be about 400 µm.
Microfabricated emitter array for an ionic liquid electrospray thruster
MN16087_with_Figs.pdf
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