Solid-like ablation propulsion generation in nanosecond pulsed laser interaction with carbon-doped glycerol

A solid-like propellant of carbon-doped glycerol ablated by a nanosecond pulsed laser is investigated. The results show that the specific impulse increases with increasing carbon content, and a maximum value of 228 s is obtained. The high specific impulse is attributed to the low ablated mass loss that occurs at high carbon content. More importantly, with increasing carbon content, the properties of the doped glycerol approach to those of a solid. These results indicate that propulsion at the required coupling coefficient and specific impulse can be realized by doping a liquid propellant with an absorber.