Fundamental mechanisms causing dielectric breakdown in the picosecond and femtosecond time range

Peter P. Pronko; Paul A. VanRompay; Xin Bing Liu; Gerard A. Mourou

doi:10.1117/12.307040

20 April 1998 Fundamental mechanisms causing dielectric breakdown in the picosecond and femtosecond time range

Peter P. Pronko, Paul A. VanRompay, Xin Bing Liu, Gerard A. Mourou

Proceedings Volume 3244, Laser-Induced Damage in Optical Materials: 1997; (1998) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.307040
Event: Laser-Induced Damage in Optical Materials: 1997, 1997, Boulder, CO, United States

Abstract

The technique of chirped pulse amplification makes possible the investigation of dielectric breakdown as a function of pulse duration over a continuous regime of pulse duration from the 100 ps to the tens of fs and for material with bandgap varying from the single eV to several eV. This study leads to the surprising result that even for 100 fs pulses the dielectric breakdown is dominated by impact ionization even in the case of single photon absorption. For larger bandgap the seeding of the avalanche is produced by multiphoton ionization. This makes possible for the first time the direct determination of the electron ionization rate in important electronic materials like silicon as a function of the electric field up to 2 10⁸ V/an which is impossible by conventional electronic means.

Citation Download Citation

Peter P. Pronko, Paul A. VanRompay, Xin Bing Liu, and Gerard A. Mourou "Fundamental mechanisms causing dielectric breakdown in the picosecond and femtosecond time range", Proc. SPIE 3244, Laser-Induced Damage in Optical Materials: 1997, (20 April 1998); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.307040

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