• plasma
• thrusters
• transport

The problem of the electron transport across a magnetic field is one of the main limitations for the development and the implementation of different plasma technologies, such as Nuclear Fusion reactors or Hall-Effect Thrusters (HET).
Although Hall thrusters were originally developed more than 50 years ago and they are in operation on a number of satellites, electron transport across the magnetic barrier is still not well understood. This latter is called anomalous transport. In the absence of reliable theory, the anomalous electron transport in Hall thrusters prevents the development of predictive simulation codes and the available fluid models use empirical coefficients to describe cross-field electron transport.
This thesis follows these main steps: first, in order to identify and define the problem in the HET, a review of plasma physics together with the literature of the anomalous electron transport problem in HET are presented. Furthermore, a possible theoretical model based on the turbulence generated by a particular instability is explained. Then, the data analysis of the physical quantities measured within the channel of the engine is presented. In order to extract the information regarding the transport of electrons along the channel center-line, this analysis has been combined with an electron fluid model. Finally, the results obtained from the data analysis are presented together with other physical quantities on a center-line of the channel.