In this work we present studies for the behavior of impurity breakdown of two GaAs samples grown by Molecular Beam Epitaxy at 200oC and 300oC. We vary the temperature and the illumination intensity. For the sample grown at 200oC, the transport mechanism after the breakdown is of the same type of the main free carriers at low electric elds. Below 100K, a clear dependence of the threshold electri...

Electrical breakdown is one of the most important physical phenomena in electrical and electronic engineering. Since the early 20(th) century, many theories and models of electrical breakdown have been proposed, but the origin of one key issue, that the explanation for dc breakdown strength being twice or higher than ac breakdown strength in insulating materials, remains unclear. Here, by emplo...

Here we study the stability and rupture of molecular junctions under high voltage bias at the single molecule/single bond level using the scanning tunneling microscope-based break-junction technique. We synthesize carbon-, silicon-, and germanium-based molecular wires terminated by aurophilic linker groups and study how the molecular backbone and linker group affect the probability of voltage-i...

Dielectric material between capacitor electrodes increases the capacitance. However, when the electric field exceeds a threshold, electric breakdown in the dielectric discharges the capacitor suddenly and the stored energy is lost. We show that nano vacuum tubes do not have this problem because (i) electric breakdown can be suppressed with quantization phenomena, and (ii) the capacitance is lar...

The electrical breakdown characteristics of Na Cl-water mixtures are investigated over the concentration range from pure distilled water to a saturated salt solution at 20°C, The electrode material used is stainless steel and is arranged in a point-plane geometry. The electrode spacing is varced from 1-3 mm giving "average" electric fields as high as 5 MV/m. The voltage and current through the ...

We report on a novel method for local control of shell engineering in multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) using Joule-heating induced electric breakdown. By modulating the heat dissipation along a nanotube, we can confine its thinning and shell breakdown to occur within localized regions of peak temperatures, which are distributed over one-half of the NT length. The modulation is achieved by u...

We investigate pre-breakdown hydrodynamic flows and initial stages of the electric breakdown in dielectric liquids. Three models are considered. The first one represents the purely thermal mechanism. Here, the liquid is simulated by a single-phase lattice Boltzmann equation (LBE) method. The temperature and the electric charge density are described by additional LBE components with zero mass. T...

Measurements are presented of the electric field at breakdown for perforated flat plates fabricated from carbon-carbon (CC) composite, Poco graphite, pyrolytic graphite (PG), and molybdenum. The perforated flat plates represent electrodes used in ion sources and ion thrusters and measurements are made with and without ion beamlet extraction through the perforations. A ranking of the materials i...

The proposed model assumes that the criteria leading to the lethal breakdown of microorganisms suspended in a continuous medium depend on two parameters: (a) the applied electric field must exceed the critical field of membrane to create holes and (b) the Joule energy (deposited in the membrane) must exceed the minimum value beyond which the cell can not recover. The first parameter initiates (...