Energetic Particles and Radiation Intense Emission During Ferroelectric Surface Discharge

In this paper, the operation of ferroelectric plasma sources (FPSs) under the application of driving pulses with different amplitudes (4-40 kV) was studied. It was found that, in addition to the electron/ion flows studied in earlier research, the dense plasma formation during the fast fall (a few tens of nanoseconds) of the driving pulse is accompanied by the generation of a highly diverging ~180deg neutral flow with velocity of ~7ldr10⁷ cm/s as well as by charged microparticles and intense extreme ultraviolet radiation. It was shown that the velocity and intensity of the generated neutral flow remained the same for different parameters of the driving pulse. A model for the neutrals and microparticles emission based on Coulomb microexplosions of ferroelectric ceramics is suggested. The application of the FPS as a promising micro thruster is also discussed.