Electrical breakdown of a metallic nanowire mesh

The electrical breakdown of a metallic nanowire mesh induced by Joule heating (i.e., melting) is investigated by solving the corresponding electro-thermal problem, where the effect of electromigration is neglected. A numerical computational program is firstly developed to simulate the temperature profile for a metallic wire mesh and investigate the melting current triggering the melting of mesh segment. The melting process of the mesh structure is investigated by analyzing the variation of melting current with regard to the melting propagation of mesh segment. On this basis, the melting behavior of a system of the mesh equipped with current source is predicted. For both current-controlled and voltage-controlled current source, local instability (i.e., at a constant current/voltage, several mesh segments melt simultaneously) and stable melting (i.e., the increase of current/voltage is necessary for the melting of mesh segment) will happen. Moreover, global instability (i.e., at a constant current, several mesh segments melt until the circuit of mesh opens) will occur only at the mode of current-controlled current source.