Investigation of nonself-maintained discharge in crossed electric and magnetic fields with closed Hall current

A nonself-maintained discharge in crossed fields with a closed Hall current is experimentally investigated. Argon and xenon are used as the working medium. The discharge gap is characterized by a magnetic field uniform along the channel, by the absence of an insulating coating on the channel walls, and by the delivery of the working medium uniform over the channel section through the porous end diaphragm of the anode. Measurements of current distributions over the structural elements are performed. It is shown that, in the presence of a self-incandescent compensator cathode supporting a nonself-maintained discharge, an intense nux of accelerated ions is created with a high recovery factor of the working medium with about 30 eV spent for ion formation and the energy efficiency exceeding 0.5.