The spatiotemporal oscillation characteristics of the dielectric wall sheath in stationary plasma thrusters.

A two-dimensional particle in cell model is used to simulate the sheath oscillation in stationary plasma thrusters. The embedded secondary electron emission (SEE) submodel is based on that of Morozov but improved by considering the electron elastic reflection effect. The simulation results show that when the SEE coefficient is smaller than one due to the relative low electron temperature, one-dimensional static sheath can be found; as the electron temperature increase, the SEE coefficient approaches to one and temporal oscillation sheath appears; when the electron temperature increases so high that the SEE coefficient is beyond one, the sheath oscillates not only in time but also in space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]