Electrical Breakdown in Polycrystalline Sodium Chloride at 350°C

Abstract

Previous work (cf. Hanscomb 1962) provided strong evidence that in single crystals of sodium chloride, the mechanism of electrical breakdown is "thermal" at 350°C under conditions in which the specimens were subjected to linearly rising fields resulting in breakdown in the time range 3·5 ms-lO s. The thermal mechanism invoked in that study attributed breakdown to Joule heating from ionic current. No evidence of an electronic contribution to the pre-breakdown current with a consequent "intrinsic" type mechanism of breakdown was found.