Lecturer: Richard Udiljak, Chalmers, Forskarskolan Date: 2007-03-22 10:00 Place: Aula
Microwave discharge in space: multipactor in low pressure gas
For the crew on board orbiting spacecraft like the international space station, ISS, reliable communication links are essential for everyday work and operation of the station. One possible cause of link failure is microwave breakdown and the main risk is multipactor. Free electrons inside the evacuated microwave system can be accelerated to very high velocities by the transmitted signal and if the electrons collide with one of the device walls with sufficiently high speed, they will knock out more electrons from the wall. The procedure is then repeated with the newly emitted electrons and in fractions of a microsecond a fully developed discharge will appear. Common microwave structures have been studied with respect to this phenomenon with the aim to provide the engineers with reliable and cost efficient methods of designing discharge free hardware.
Created 2007-02-12 07:40:12 by Uwe Raffalski Last changed 2007-03-22 08:55:45 by Mats Holmström
