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Full-Text Articles in Physics

The Effect Of Voltage Ramp Rate On Dielectric Breakdown Of Thin Film Polymers, Anthony Thomas May 2007

The Effect Of Voltage Ramp Rate On Dielectric Breakdown Of Thin Film Polymers, Anthony Thomas

Senior Theses and Projects

Electrical insulators are used in many applications in industry, education and the home environment. They work by keeping electricity contained. They are not however perfect and under stress can become ineffective. Every insulator has a dielectric strength, a measurement of how much electrical stress it can withstand. If the material is stressed beyond that strength the material will breakdown. Electrostatic breakdown is defined as “the abrupt irreversible drop in resistivity at high fields, often accompanied by destruction of the material” (See Fig. 1) [McGraw-Hill]. The point at which the material breaks down is called the electrostatic discharge breakdown voltage, or …


Electric Field Induced Hopping Conductivity And Polarization In Hytrel, Steve Hart Apr 2007

Electric Field Induced Hopping Conductivity And Polarization In Hytrel, Steve Hart

Senior Theses and Projects

The focus of my 4900 research project is centered on the conductivity of Hytrel, a complex, newly developed block co-polymer. I first began to study Hytrel during the summer of 2006, as part of the USU College of Science Mini-Grant program1. My general objective was to study the relationship between the resistivity of Hytrel and hopping conductivity. Hopping conductivity is a theory of electron transport for nonconducting solids, originally developed for amorphous semiconductors2,3. The theory will be examined in greater detail later in this document. While studying this relationship last summer, I noticed an unusual phenomenon …