Transition From Microscale to Nanoscale Breakdown Dynamics

The transition to microscale and smaller devices necessitates a more robust understanding of breakdown discharge mechanisms at these length scales where the conventional Paschen's law (PL) fails. Many “modified Paschen's laws
^{1, 2}
” have been derived to account for field emission effects that have been hypothesized to drive this deviation from the classical PL. We previously nondimensionalized one such model
²
to derive a universal breakdown model
³
valid from the mean free path of an electron to the classical Paschen law.