Frequency response of atmospheric pressure gas breakdown in micro/nanogaps

In this paper, we study gas breakdown in micro/nanogaps at atmospheric pressure from low RF to high millimeter band. For gaps larger than about 10 μm, the breakdown voltage agrees with macroscale vacuum experiments, exhibiting a sharp decrease at a critical frequency, due to transition between the boundary- and diffusion-controlled regimes, and a gradual increase at very high frequencies as a result of inefficient energy transfer by field. For sub-micron gaps, a much lower breakdown is obtained almost independent of frequency because of the dominance of field emission.