Electromagnetic simulation of gas discharge effects in RF microgaps

Gas discharge can be ignited in micro-scale gaps even with small voltages commonly found in many RF applications, electronic devices and miniaturized antennas. This discharge may eventually lead to gas breakdown which could result in performance degradation or even device failure. In this paper, an algorithm for the simulation of electromagnetic effects of gas discharge phenomena is presented. For this end, the effective permittivity and conductivity of the gap is calculated based on the electron number density which itself is extracted by particle-in-cell/Monte Carlo collision simulation. This technique may provide an ability to predict probable degradation as well as failure-free operating regimes.