Imaging dielectric breakdown in solid-state materials

Dielectric breakdown is the process by which an insulating material becomes conductive when subjected to high enough voltages, and electric current flows through it. This process limits the energy storage capacity of capacitors, and is destructive. In this proposed experiment, we will use Dark-Field X-ray Microscopy (DFXM) to perform pre- and post-mortem quantification of the strain-fields around breakdown patterns in ferroelectric single crystals. This will provide insight into the breakdown mechanism, and thereby guide the design of more robust capacitors with higher breakdown strength. It will also establish feasibility for future time-resolved experiments, where we aim to capture time-resolved movies of dielectric breakdown.