DocumentCode :
3343014
Title :
Discharge behaviors of electrical breakdown across nanometer vacuum gaps
Author :
Guodong Meng ; Yonghong Cheng ; Liang Chen ; Yu Chen ; Kai Wu
Author_Institution :
State Key Lab. of Electr. Insul ation & Power Equip., Xi´an Jiaotong Univ., Xi´an, China
fYear :
2013
fDate :
June 30 2013-July 4 2013
Firstpage :
662
Lastpage :
665
Abstract :
Micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) and Nano-electro-mechanical systems (NEMS) are emerging technologies that uses tools and techniques in the microelectronics industry to build microscopic machines. Electrostatic force is often employed to drive the motion components in MEMS and NEMS devices, which could cause extremely high electric field (more than 108 V/m) between two metal conductors. However, the high field intensity may result in electrical breakdown across the conductors in case of improper operations or overvoltage. Therefore, this paper presented a novel experimental technique to study the discharge behaviors across nanometer gaps between 20 nm and 300 nm. The influence of gap separations on breakdown characteristics and the voltage contrast effect in the gap spacing were both investigated. Results showed that the field electron emission did not play a dominate role in the electrical breakdown process across nanometer gaps, which was different from the classical theory of vacuum breakdown, and the breakdown voltage increased as the increase of gap separations. Besides, the voltage contrast effect in the gap spacing was also observed through the scanning electron microscope, which was related to the electric field intensity.
Keywords :
conductors (electric); discharges (electric); electrostatics; micromechanical devices; nanoelectromechanical devices; scanning electron microscopy; vacuum breakdown; MEMS; NEMS; discharge behaviors; electric field intensity; electrical breakdown process; electrostatic force; field electron emission; gap separations; high field intensity; microelectromechanical systems; microscopic machines; nanoelectromechanical systems; nanometer vacuum gaps; scanning electron microscope; vacuum breakdown; voltage contrast; Discharges (electric); Electric fields; Electrodes; Scanning electron microscopy; Tungsten; Vacuum breakdown; Micro-electro-mechanical systems; Nano-electro-mechanical systems; discharge behaviors; experimental techniques; gap separations; nanometer gaps; voltage contrast;
fLanguage :
English
Publisher :
ieee
Conference_Titel :
Solid Dielectrics (ICSD), 2013 IEEE International Conference on
Conference_Location :
Bologna
ISSN :
2159-1687
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4799-0807-3
Type :
conf
DOI :
10.1109/ICSD.2013.6619828
Filename :
6619828
Link To Document :
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