Surface Discharges on Teflon, Mylar and Kapton

1 January 1979

journal article
Published by Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science

Vol. 26 (6) , 5146-5151
https://doi.org/10.1109/tns.1979.4330287

Abstract

FEP Teflon, Mylar and Kapton H are compared from the point of view of charged-area scaling of discharge current pulse properties. The properties measured are peak current, pulse duration, released charge and energy dissipated in a load resistor, all for 20 keV incident electrons at a current density of 80 nA/cm2. In general it is found that the three materials are more similar than dissimilar, and furthermore that this similarity extends to discharge damage as well, the damage being identified as a combination of subsurface filamentary tunnels and surface grooves. The experimental observations are used to motivate a theory of discharge arc propagation in which the propagation velocity is controlled by the rate of removal of excess charge via wave propagation along a filamentary tunnel filled with an overdense plasma.

Keywords

This publication has 2 references indexed in Scilit:

Effect of Laboratory Simulation Parameters on Spacecraft Dielectric Discharges
IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science, 1979
Dielectric Breakdown in Solids
Published by Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) ,1974