Breakdown in ZnO Varistors by High Power Electrical Pulses

This report documents an investigation of irreversible electrical breakdown in ZnO varistors due to short pulses of high electric field and current density. For those varistors that suffer breakdown, there is a monotonic, pulse-by-pulse degradation in the switching electric field. The electrical and structural characteristics of varistors during and after breakdown are described qualitatively and quantitatively. Once breakdown is nucleated, the degradation typically follows a well-defined relationship between the number of post-initiation pulses and the degraded switching voltage. In some cases the degraded varistor has a remnant 20 {micro}m diameter hollow track showing strong evidence of once-molten ZnO. A model is developed for both electrical and thermal effects during high energy pulsing. The breakdown is assumed to start at one electrode and advance towards the other electrode as a thin filament of conductive material that grows incrementally with each successive pulse. The model is partially validated by experiments in which the varistor rod is cut at several different lengths from the electrode. Invariably one section of the cut varistor has a switching field that is not degraded while the other section(s) are heavily degraded. Based on the experiments and models of behavior during breakdown, some speculations about the nature of the nucleating mechanism are offered in the last section