Models of electron trapping and transport in polyethylene: Current–voltage characteristics.

We present a unified method to estimate current-voltage characteristics of insulators starting from ab initio electronic calculations of the properties of the dielectric material. The method consists of three stages: (1) computation of trap energy distributions for excess electrons by means of density functional theory, (2) computation of local electron mobilities from a multiple trapping electron transport model which includes trap filling effects and (3) macroscopic integration of the Poisson and current-field equations, using local electron mobility data from stage (2) to predict the currentvoltage characteristics for a material of a given width. The only input to this procedure is the chemical composition of the insulating material. We compare our model results with experimental studies of the current-voltage curve of cross-linked polyethylene. We present a unified method to estimate current-voltage characteristics of insulators starting from ab initio electronic calculations of the properties of the dielectric material. The method consists of three stages: (1) computation of trap energy distributions for excess electrons by means of density functional theory, (2) computation of local electron mobilities from a multiple trapping electron transport model which includes trap filling effects and (3) macroscopic integration of the Poisson and current-field equations, using local electron mobility data from stage (2) to predict the currentvoltage characteristics for a material of a given width. The only input to this procedure is the chemical composition of the insulating material. We compare our model results with experimental studies of the current-voltage curve of cross-linked polyethylene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]