Consideration on filamentary thermal breakdown by measuring pre-breakdown current in solid dielectrics

Filamentary thermal breakdown is discussed on the basis of experimental results on the electrical conduction just prior to breakdown in polyimide (PI) and polyethylene (PE) with a dc ramp voltage applied at 90°C. In PI, the pre-breakdown current was almost proportional to the electrode area S till a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJapanese Journal of Applied Physics Vol. 24; no. 8; pp. 984 - 987
Main Authors HIKITA, M, KANNO, I, SAWA, G, IEDA, M
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Tokyo Japanese journal of applied physics 01.01.1985
Subjects
Applied sciences
Electrical, magnetic and optical properties
Exact sciences and technology
Organic polymers
Physicochemistry of polymers
Properties and characterization
Polyimide
Polyethylene
Temperature
Electric breakdown
Electrical properties
Dielectric materials
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Summary:Filamentary thermal breakdown is discussed on the basis of experimental results on the electrical conduction just prior to breakdown in polyimide (PI) and polyethylene (PE) with a dc ramp voltage applied at 90°C. In PI, the pre-breakdown current was almost proportional to the electrode area S till about 100 µs before breakdown, but a sharp current increase then appeared at smaller values of S . In PE, this sharp current increase could be detected only after about 25 ns before breakdown, using a new measuring device with higher time resolution. Assuming that this sharp current increase is due to the temperature rise of a small spot in the sample leading to filamentary thermal breakdown, the maximum radius of the filament spot was estimated at about 35 µm for PI and about 2000 Å for PE.
ISSN:0021-4922
1347-4065
DOI:10.1143/jjap.24.984