| Hypervelocity impact of space dust on the exposed materials of spacecraft can produce a number of related effects, such as cumulative damage effect, plasma effect and flash effect. While the plasma and corresponding flash effects could be utilized in space dust detection for environmental investigation.Hypervelocity impact experiments of space dusts were carried out onto the PET and optical glass targets using an electrostatic accelerator. The large amount of induced plasma and flash signals were recorded and statistically analyzed. Afterwards the mechanisms of plasma/flash effect were discussed in the paper.The results show that plasma signals produced by the impact on single-target are different, to a certain extent, to the signals generated by the targets with double-layer structure, there is a type of signal with two voltage pick induced by the targets with double-layer structure, accompanied by the emergence of Faraday ring induction signal. However, the evolution laws between the characteristics of the majority of the signals and the incident particle parameters is basically the same: the greater the kinetic energy the incident particles have, the more quantity of charge the impact-generated plasma has, and the detected plasma signal is also stronger; while the higher velocity incident particles have, the faster the plasma moves, and the time detected is shorter.Impacts of Al partials with high-speed on solar glass produce two types of signals, one type of signal which is majority has a flash intensity peak occurred first and quickly, the pick lasts shortly and then comes with a decay signal lasting long time; the greater kinetic energy the incident particles have, the higher the flash intensity peak is, and the time of flash duration is longer.The Decay signal of the Flash signal is caused by the radiation of the recombination of between the positive and negative charge of plasma: the greater kinetic energy of incident particles have, the higher the temperature of impact-generated debris and vapor is, and then resulting in higher flash intensity; the more the quantity of plasma charge is, he time of flash duration is longer; when the recombination of charge is ended, the flash signal is disappeared. |
