Paschen's Law

PASCHEN’S LAW

The Townsend’s Criterion

enables the evaluation of breakdown voltage of the gap by the use of appropriate values of α/p and ν corresponding to the values E/p when the current is too low to damage the cathode and also the space charge distortions are minimum. A close agreement between the calculated and experimentally determined values is obtained when the gaps are short or long and the pressure is relatively low. An expression for the breakdown voltage for uniform field gaps as a function of gap length and gas pressure can be derived from the threshold equation by expressing the ionization coefficient α/p as a function of field strength E and gas pressure p i.e.,

This shows that the breakdown voltage of a uniform field gap is a unique function of the product of gas pressure and the gap length for a particular gas and electrode material. This relation is known as Paschen’s law. This relation does not mean that the breakdown voltage is directly proportional to product pd even though it is found that for some region of the product pd the relation is linear i.e., the breakdown voltage varies linearly with the product pd.