Resumen
Over the last decade electric propulsion devices have evolved from laboratory units to qualified space hardware. Due to the diversity of concepts numerous electric thruster technologies are available on the new space market. Each technology has a specific working principle which implies a wide variety of plasma discharges and ion beams. Currently, it is still difficult to compare, without bias, these plasmas to each other with standard devices and procedures. This work aims at contributing to the effort towards standardization of a specific type of plasma diagnostic called a Faraday cup. This instrument is of great importance as it measures the ion current density in electric thruster plumes. This physical quantity provides information on key parameter for thruster development and production such as thrust, beam divergence, ionization degree and propellant use. In this contribution we describe and validate the optimization of a Faraday cup collimator in the case of Hall thrusters.