Development of a cavity ring-down spectroscopy sensor for boron nitride sputter erosion in Hall thrusters

Sputter erosion of boron nitride (BN) is a critically important process in Hall thrusters from the point of view of both lifetime assessment and contamination effects. This contribution describes the development of a laser based sensor for in situ monitoring of sputtered BN from Hall thrusters. We present a continuous-wave cavity ring-down spectroscopy (cw-CRDS) system and its demonstrative measurement results from BN sputtering experiments.