Investigation of the toroidal resonator of an accelerating microwave ion thruster

The paper presents the results of a study of the toroidal resonator of the prototype of an accelerating microwave ion thruster, in terms of determining the magnitude of the accelerating voltage in the gap. To solve this problem, the experimental method of frequency analysis and the thermal method were applied. It is shown that when the power consumption of the microwave generator is 3 watts in the prototype operation mode without discharge, the power of the microwave losses in the cavity of the toroidal resonator amounted to 1.271 watts by the frequency method and 0.97 Watts by the calorimetric method. The magnitude of the accelerating voltage in the gap, calculated from the power of the microwave losses found by the thermal method, was 436.8 V. The frequency method showed that the power of the harmonics of the fundamental frequency in the cavity of the toroidal resonator is negligible compared to the fundamental frequency. When resonators work together, the harmonics of the fundamental frequency can serve as indicators of their resonant regions.