Towards the miniaturization of a space-borne electrostatic energy analyzer: the miniature enhanced geometry electrostatic analyzer (MEGEA)

Author

Amerl, Peter V. ; Yau, Andrew W.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Phys. & Astron., Calgary Univ., Alta., Canada

fYear

2005

fDate

24-27 July 2005

Firstpage

139

Lastpage

142

Abstract

The Miniature Enhanced Geometry Electrostatic Analyzer (MEGEA) is a spiral 270° Electrostatic Analyzer (EA). Adopting the spiral shape results in an instrument that is a factor of 2.7 smaller by volume than a conventional cylindrical EA with a comparable input cross section and accompanied by a 10% improvement in the energy resolution. The reduction in size is a first step to miniaturizing such instruments for in-situ measurements of space plasma properties. Presented are results from computer simulations of MEGEA and a conventional electrostatic analyzer and some comparisons between these two types of instruments.

Keywords

atmospheric measuring apparatus; magnetosphere; plasma properties; remote sensing; computer simulations; energy resolution; input cross section; miniature enhanced geometry electrostatic analyzer; miniaturization; size reduction; space plasma properties; space-borne electrostatic energy analyzer; spiral shape; Electrostatic analysis; Electrostatic measurements; Energy resolution; Extraterrestrial measurements; Geometry; Instruments; Plasma measurements; Shape; Size measurement; Spirals;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

MEMS, NANO and Smart Systems, 2005. Proceedings. 2005 International Conference on

Print_ISBN

0-7695-2398-6

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ICMENS.2005.128

Filename

1540799