Instrumentation Enhancements for Electron Yield Measurements of Extremely Low-Conductivity High-Yield Dielectrics

Utah Valley University Sorensen Center

Electron yield, a material dependent property which describes how it will charge under incident electron irradiation of a given energy, is defined as the number of electrons emitted from a material per incident electron. While very important for spacecraft charging modeling, the measurement of electron yield for insulating materials is very challenging because insulators quickly charge up under electron irradiation, thereby modifying the yield measurements.

Improved techniques have been implemented to reduce charging with each yield measurement, as well as to neutralize acquired charge between measurements. The goal is to determine the “intrinsic yield” (yield of uncharged insulator). New analysis methods have been developed to analyze yield on smaller time scales with resulting reduced charge deposition. Tests to validate these techniques as well as their results are discussed. Future work will complete these validation tests.