Effect of Film Thickness and Electrode Area on the Dielectric Breakdown Characteristics of Metallized Capacitor Films

Abstract

An alternative approach for measuring breakdown characteristics of metallized and non-metallized polymer films has been previously developed at TUT. The method enables measurement of multiple breakdowns beyond the weakest point of each sample film by utilizing low-energy self-healing breakdown of metallized film. The method yields a large amount of breakdown data even from a relatively small sample area which enables the formation of detailed material-specific breakdown fingerprints. In this paper, some preliminary results of an ongoing further research on the area and thickness dependence of the breakdown characteristics of various polymer films are presented.