We consider a two-dimensional random resistor network (RRN) in the presence of two competing biased processes consisting of the breaking and recovering of elementary resistors. These two processes are driven by the joint effects of an electrical bias and of the heat exchange with a thermal bath. The electrical bias is set up by applying a constant voltage or, alternatively, a constant current. Monte Carlo simulations are performed to analyze the network evolution in the full range of bias values. Depending on the bias strength, electrical failure or steady state are achieved. Here we investigate the steady state of the RRN focusing on the properties of the non-Ohmic regime. In constant-voltage conditions, a scaling relation is found between /(0) and V/V(0), where is the average network resistance, (0) the linear regime resistance, and V0 the threshold value for the onset of nonlinearity. A similar relation is found in constant-current conditions. The relative variance of resistance fluctuations also exhibits a strong nonlinearity whose properties are investigated. The power spectral density of resistance fluctuations presents a Lorentzian spectrum and the amplitude of fluctuations shows a significant non-Gaussian behavior in the prebreakdown region. These results compare well with electrical breakdown measurements in thin films of composites and of other conducting materials.
In a random resistor network we consider the simultaneous evolution of two competing random processes consisting in breaking and recovering the elementary resistors with probabilities W(D) and W(R). The condition W(R)>W(D)/(1+W(D)) leads to a stationary state, while in the opposite case, the broken resistor fraction reaches the percolation threshold p(c). We study the resistance noise of this system under stationary conditions by Monte Carlo simulations. The variance of resistance fluctuations is found to follow a scaling law |p-p(c)|(-kappa(0)) with kappa(0) = 5.5. The proposed model relates quantitatively the defectiveness of a disordered media with its electrical and excess-noise characteristics.
We describe the electrical failure of thin films as a percolation in two-dimensional random resistor networks. We show that the resistance evolution follows a scaling relation expressed as R approximately epsilon(-&mgr;) where epsilon = (1-t/tau), tau is the time of electrical failure of the film, and &mgr; is the same critical exponent appearing in the scaling relation between R and the defect concentration. For uniform degradation the value of &mgr; is universal. The validity of this scaling relation in the case of nonuniform degradation is proved by discussing the case in which the failure is due to a filamentary defect growth. The existence of this relation allows predictions of failure times from early time measurements of the resistance.
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