Theoretical Linkage of Electron Emission and Gas Breakdown Mechanisms*

Characterizing electron emission and gas breakdown behavior from nanoscale to microscale is important for micro- and nano-electromechanical systems, directed energy, and microplasmas. Theoretical studies often investigate emission mechanism transitions piecemeal given the complexity in linking them over a broad parameter space. This study reports various approaches for linking these mechanisms. The first reports the development of a common nondimensionalization scheme to link quantum space-charge-limited emission, classical space-charge-limited emission, space-charge-limited emission with collisions, field emission (FE), field emission driven microscale gas breakdown, and Paschen’s law (PL)¹. Since common microplasmas use a series resistor as a current limiter, we also incorporate a series resistor into a microscale gas breakdown theory² and compare to particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations. The implications of these results on ongoing nanoscale and microscale gas breakdown experiments will be discussed.

¹A. M. Loveless, A. M. Darr, and A. L. Garner, Phys. Plasmas 28, 042110 (2021).

²A. L. Garner, et al., IEEE Trans. Plasma Sci. 48, 808 (2020).

* Work supported by ONR under Grant N00014-21-1-2024, AFOSR under Grant FA9550-18-1-0218, and a Purdue Summer University Research Fellowship.