Physics Commons^™

Incorporating Collisions And Resistance Into The Transition From Field Emission To The Space Charge Regime, Samuel D. Dynako, Adam M. Darr, Allen L. Garner

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Advancements in microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) and microplasmas, particularly with respect to applications in combustion and biotechnology, motivate studies into microscale gas breakdown to enable safe system design and implementation. Breakdown at microscale deviates from that predicted by Paschen’s law due to field emission—the stripping of electrons from the cathode in the presence of strong surface field—and follows the Fowler-Nordheim (FN) law. As injected current increases at this length scale, electrons accumulate in the gap and FN electron emission becomes space charge limited, leading to the Child-Langmuir (CL) law at vacuum and the Mott-Gurney (MG) law at high pressure. While theoretical …