Electrical Conduction Through Small Contact Spots

Earlier literature has reported that the voltage-temperature (V-T) relation for electrical contacts, and classical electrical contact theory in general, are invalid where the a-spots are on the order of nanometers. This paper reviews earlier literature dealing with the breakdown of the V-T relation...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inIEEE transactions on components and packaging technologies Vol. 29; no. 4; pp. 727 - 734
Main Author Timsit, R.S.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published New York IEEE 01.12.2006
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
Subjects
Breakdown
Constriction resistance
Contact
Contact resistance
Contaminants
Cooling
Dealing
Electric breakdown
Electric contacts
Electric resistance
electrical contact resistance
electrical contacts
Electrons
Nanocontacts
Resistance heating
Spots
Stems
Temperature
Thermal conductivity
Voltage
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Summary:Earlier literature has reported that the voltage-temperature (V-T) relation for electrical contacts, and classical electrical contact theory in general, are invalid where the a-spots are on the order of nanometers. This paper reviews earlier literature dealing with the breakdown of the V-T relation and presents quantitative arguments to propose that this breakdown stems from the ballistic motion of electrons through nanometer-sized constrictions. Earlier literature also suggested that the breakdown of classical theory stems in part from thermal losses from a-spots to contaminant layers in an electrical interface. Through the use of a simple a-spot model, this paper shows that this cooling mechanism is not sufficiently important to affect the validity of the classical V-T relation and classical electrical contact theory in general
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-2
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-1
content type line 23
ISSN:1521-3331
1557-9972
DOI:10.1109/TCAPT.2006.885930