Submicron gap capacitor for measurement of breakdown voltage in air

Abstract

We have developed a new method for measuring the value of breakdown voltage in air for electrode separations from 400 nm to 45 m. The electrodes used were thin film Au lines evaporated on sapphire. The resulting capacitors had an area of 80ϫ 80 m 2 . We demonstrate the ability to deduce the value of the separation of the plates by the value of the capacitance. The data acquired with this method do not agree with Paschen's law for electrode separations below 10 m, as expected from previous experiments. Amongst the improvements of our method are the measurement of plate separation and the very small surface roughness ͑average of 6 nm͒.

20 years of microplasma research: a status report

“…The smallest gaps for which the breakdown voltage in atmospheric-pressure gas (air and N 2 ) was measured were approximately half a micrometer [26,27]. Since the electrical breakdown voltage in such small gaps is strongly affected by the surface roughness of the electrodes [28], reproducible electric field breakdown results for these extremely small gaps could only be obtained by polishing the electrodes to a very high finish [26,27].…”

“…Since the electrical breakdown voltage in such small gaps is strongly affected by the surface roughness of the electrodes [28], reproducible electric field breakdown results for these extremely small gaps could only be obtained by polishing the electrodes to a very high finish [26,27].…”

Physics of Charging in Dielectrics and Reliability of Capacitive RF-MEMS Switches

“…The effect of dielectric charging through surface roughness and asperities has been reported in several papers (Cabuz 1999, van Spengen 2002, Sumant 2007, Papaioannou 2007d. Moreover charges are injected through micro gap discharge (Torres 1999, Slade 2002, Hourdakis 2006 in the proximity areas due to deviation from Pasken law and the charging is induced due to high electric field (Papaioannou 2006b) in areas where no one of the previous mechanisms can occur.…”

A study of capacitance-voltage curve narrowing effect in capacitive microelectromechanical switches

“…The dielectric charging due to air ionization 12 and current conduction 13 can also be ignored as the field across the switch electrodes remains only 0.1 MV/cm. In general, during the contact stress condition the mechanical degradation of the membrane and the charge trapping due to dielectric conduction are possible to occur.…”

“…At the contact stress of 20 V used in this work, the airgap is 230 nm, 15 thus the field still remains low and air ionization is unlikely to occur. 12 Moreover, the effect of charge trapping mechanism is also minimal as the current conduction is limited only to the few membrane-dielectric contact points. Therefore, during the contact stress condition and due to the high roughness of contacting surfaces, most of the dielectric area is exposed to the stress similar as used during the noncontact condition.…”