In this study, we fabricated nano-capillary emitter arrays for stable ion emission of ionic liquid electrospray thrusters, employing the fabrication of field emitter arrays or gated nano electron sources. A nano-capillary emitter was successfully fabricated with a 100–300nm capillary diameter, which prevented ionic liquid leakage by significantly increasing the fluidic impedance of the ionic liquid compared to a previously proposed emitter. An ion emission experiment was conducted with 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium dicyanamide as the propellant. Ion emission started at a low voltage of 61V owing to a small gap of approximately 1μm between the emitter and extractor electrode. The maximum current density was 43mAcm⁻² on the positive side and −13mAcm⁻² on the negative side without leakage of the ionic liquid, which was more than 100 times higher than that of conventional electrospray thrusters. Moreover, we obtained continuous ion emission without current intercepted by the extractor.

在这项研究中，我们制造了纳米毛细管发射器阵列，用于离子液体电喷雾推进器的稳定离子发射，采用场发射器阵列或门控纳米电子源的制造。成功制造了具有 100-300nm 毛细管直径的纳米毛细管发射器，与先前提出的发射器相比，它通过显着增加离子液体的流体阻抗来防止离子液体泄漏。以1-乙基-3-甲基咪唑鎓二氰胺为推进剂进行了离子发射实验。离子发射开始在61V的由于大约1的小间隙的低电压μ米发射器和提取器电极之间。正极的最大电流密度为 43mAcm ^-2和 -13mAcm ^-2在负侧没有离子液体泄漏，这是传统电喷雾推进器的 100 多倍。此外，我们在没有电流被提取器拦截的情况下获得了连续的离子发射。