Methodology for Analysis of Electrical Breakdown In Micrometer gaps in Tip-To-Plane Configuration

Kemas Tofani (1, 2) , Jean-Pascal Cambronne (1) , Sorin Dinculescu (1) , Ngapuli Sinisuka , Kremena Makasheva (2)

1 LAPLACE-MDCE - Matériaux Diélectriques dans la Conversion d’Energie
2 LAPLACE-ScIPRA - Sciences et Ingénierie des Plasmas Réactifs et des Arcs

Better understanding of the electrical behavior of miniaturized electrical devices is largely supported by the need to reduce losses and to prevent operational failure caused by electrical breakdown or electrical discharge. In large scale electrode separation, the breakdown voltage is well described by the Paschen's law. However, when the inter-electrode gaps are below 10 µm a departure from the Paschen's law is observed. The current research is focused on development of methodology for analysis of the electrical breakdown behavior in micrometer gaps and the description of the underlying mechanisms. The experiments were performed for inter-electrode gaps from 1 µm to 10 µm by using piezoelectric system to control the separation in tip-to-plane configuration for which a divergence of the electric field is imposed. The obtained results show that the field electron emission enhanced by the thermionic emission becomes the main mechanism for electrical breakdown under the above conditions.

Mots clés: Paschen's law; electrical breakdown; field emission; thermionic emission; PVD process

Domaines: Sciences de l'ingénieur [physics]

Kemas Tofani, Jean-Pascal Cambronne, Sorin Dinculescu, Ngapuli Sinisuka, Kremena Makasheva. Methodology for Analysis of Electrical Breakdown In Micrometer gaps in Tip-To-Plane Configuration. 2018 IEEE 13th Nanotechnology Materials and Devices Conference (NMDC), Oct 2018, Portland, United States. pp.1-4, ⟨10.1109/NMDC.2018.8605855⟩. ⟨hal-02324370⟩