Abstract: The plasma driven micro-particle accelerator is a ground device to produce high temperature, high density, high speed plasma to accelerate small particles (10～1 000 μm) to hypervelocity (1～15 km/s), for simulating the impact effects of space debris of micron scale. First of all, a high momentum of the plasma is required for the speed of the particles, and it is closely related to the nature of the working gas and the beam velocity. Numerical simulations and theoretical analysis were carried out to explore the relationships among plasma properties, discharge conditions, electrode configurations and the working gas. Furthermore, the efficiency of the experimental device is optimized by considering the dynamic behavior of the interaction between the plasma beam and the particles.