Pulsed Operation of an Ion Accelerator

Thrust can be varied more rapidly and with greater precision and range.

Electronic circuitry has been devised to enable operation of an ion accelerator in either a continuous mode or a high-peak-power, low-average-power pulsed mode. In the original intended application, the ion accelerator would be used as a spacecraft thruster and the pulse mode would serve to generate small increments of impulse for precise control of trajectories and attitude. On Earth, pulsed operation of ion accelerators could be utilized to effect precise control of output ion fluxes in plasma and ion-beam apparatuses commonly used in the semiconductor processing industry.