The influence of gas discharge in nano-gap RF conductivity

Nano-gaps are widely found in miniaturized RF devices and circuits. Large electric fields may result in such gaps even with small voltages. These strong fields can cause gas discharge which may lead to performance degradation or even failure. Understanding this phenomenon is of critical importance in order to evaluate failure modes and determine safe operating regimes. In this paper, the important parameters of nano-scale discharge are studied and its effect on RF conductivity is rated. It is shown that the electrical conductivity may increase by > 60x by about 11% increase in the applied voltage on a 500 nm gap.