In-vacuum surface flashover of SiN, AlN, and etched SiO2 thin films at micrometre scales

Vijay Kumar; Martin Siegele-Brown; Matthew Aylett; Sebastian Weidt; Winfried Karl Hensinger

paper

In-vacuum surface flashover of SiN, AlN, and etched SiO2 thin films at micrometre scales

arXiv:2511.10528

Abstract

We investigate the surface flashover voltage threshold for SiO $_{2}$ , SiN, and AlN thin films over micrometre scale lengths. Furthermore, we test the effects of different etching chemistries on SiO $_{2}$ layers. We find that there is little significant difference between untreated SiO $_{2}$ samples and those that have been etched with hydrogen fluoride or Transene AlPad Etch 639. SiN and AlN samples performed significantly better than all SiO $_{2}$ samples giving a 45% increase in surface flashover voltage at a distance of 5 $μ$ m with the difference increasing with electrode spacing.

4 pages, 4 figures