Simulation of piezoelectric plasma micro-thruster

A piezoelectric plasma micro-thruster (PPMT) is being developed as a thruster for attitude adjustment of nano-satellites. The PPMT consists of a RF driven PZT film operating as a step-up voltage transformer, which can ionize neutrals and accelerate ions and electrons in plasma. The PPMT was driven with a low voltage through the thickness at the resonance frequency in the radial direction. To simulate operation of the PPMT, a RF pulse was applied to the base of the PZT and corresponding output voltages within the grounded aperture plate were measured to determine the voltage transformation ratio. Aperture size, radial offset were swept and resultant resonance frequencies were determined to achieve the largest voltage output.