Near-wall conductivity effect under a space–charge-saturated sheath in the Hall thruster

In this paper, we adopt the modified Morozov secondary electron emission model to investigate the influence of the characteristic of a space-charge-saturated sheath near the insulated wall of the Hall thruster on the near-wall conductivity, by the method of two-dimensional (2D) particle simulation (2D+3V). The results show that due to the sharp increase of collision frequency between the electrons and the wall under the space-charge-saturated sheath, the near-wall transport current under this sheath is remarkably higher than that under a classical sheath, and equals the near-wall transport current under a spatially oscillating sheath in order of magnitude. However, the transport currents under a space-charge-saturated sheath and a spatially oscillating sheath are different in mechanism, causing different current density distributions under the above two sheaths, and a great influence of channel width on the near-wall transport current under a space-charge-saturated sheath.