Electrical Breakdown of Thin Polymer Films

Bipolar model for electrical breakdown in polyethylene materials under dc high electrical fields

“…Under dc high applied electric field, the general aspect of our results shows an abrupt increase of the external current occurring during the steady state. This obtained aspect, by our bipolar transport model, is also reported in some previous works [14,16]. For the sake of clarification and in order to improve the structuring of this paper, our first presented result is deal with the evolution of the external current under relatively low dc applied electric field.…”

“…The physical parameters presented in Table 1 as well as the applied dc voltages are in the same order of those reported in the literature [3,14e17,21]. In fact, in this paper, we are principally interested by the dynamic of the external current evolution that is considered as the fundamental factor in the study of the electrical breakdown in insulating materials [14,16]. Under dc high applied electric field, the general aspect of our results shows an abrupt increase of the external current occurring during the steady state.…”

“…The charge generation is assumed to be controlled by Schottky law at the electrode-dielectric interface, for both electrons and holes injected. This assumption is also adopted in previous work [17] when the thermo-electronic effects are considered during the injection process and when the applied electric field values are less than 10 9 V/m [3,14,16]. The polyethylene sample is considered under uniform room temperature and the carriers are supposed having an effective constant mobility.…”

“…In fact, as we have signaled before that the specific evolution is indicated by a current instability occurring during the steady state. This instability corresponds to an abrupt increase of the external current arising at a specific time named breakdown time [14,16].…”

“…To contribute to the resolution of this phenomenon, we have applied, to this problem, our recent transient-steady model that is established initially for bipolar charge transport in the LDPE materials [15]. In this setting, we inform that majority of previous theoretical models are based on statistical aspects to study the breakdown phenomenon in the insulating materials [14,16]. In fact, these statistical approaches are used in the analysis of lifetime data and in problems related to modeling of failure processes and aging.…”