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Pre-Breakdown Evaluation Of Gas Discharge Mechanisms In Microgaps, Abbas Semnani, Ayyaswamy Venkattraman, Alina A. Alexeenko, Dimitrios Peroulis
Pre-Breakdown Evaluation Of Gas Discharge Mechanisms In Microgaps, Abbas Semnani, Ayyaswamy Venkattraman, Alina A. Alexeenko, Dimitrios Peroulis
Birck and NCN Publications
The individual contributions of various gas discharge mechanisms to total pre-breakdown current in microgaps are quantified numerically. The variation of contributions of field emission and secondary electron emission with increasing electric field shows contrasting behavior even for a given gap size. The total current near breakdown decreases rapidly with gap size indicating that microscale discharges operate in a high-current, low-voltage regime. This study provides the first such analysis of breakdown mechanisms and aids in the formulation of physics-based theories for microscale breakdown. (C) 2013 AIP Publishing LLC