Electrical Properties Study under Electron Beam of Annealed and Coated Boron Nitride

Authors

Kevin Guerch
Thierry Paulmier
JR Dennison
Justin Dekany
Sophie Guillemet-Fritsch
Pascal Lenormand

Document Type

Article

Journal/Book Title/Conference

Journal of Spacecrafts and Rockets

Publication Date

2015

First Page

1

Last Page

6

Abstract

The charging and relaxation kinetics of pyrolytic boron nitride (BN) substrates, BN with an aluminum oxide (BN/Al₂O₃) coating, and thermally-annealed alumina-coated boron nitride (an–BN/Al₂O₃) were investigated under low power electron irradiation (5 < incident energy E₀ < 20 keV and incident flux J_i = 10 nA.cm^-2 at room temperature) in the CEDRE facility at ONERA (Toulouse, France). Surface potentials of each ceramics configuration were measured over time using the Kelvin probe method. The influence of coating and annealing treatments to limit charging is discussed in this paper. A thorough study of a an–BN/Al₂O₃ sample was carried out under a critical electron flux (E₀ = 20 keV and J_i = 750 nA.cm^-2) in order to assess the degradation kinetics of the material’s electrical properties. The characterisations of an–BN/Al₂O₃ samples were performed before and after electrical aging at CIRIMAT (Toulouse, France) to identify the structural and chemical evolution which would explain this degradation. A chemical deterioration of coating and some contaminants were evidenced after the critical irradiation.

Recommended Citation

Kevin Guerch, Thierry Paulmier, JR Dennison, Justin Dekany, Sophie Guillemet-Fritsch, and Pascal Lenormand, “Electrical Properties Study under Electron Beam of Annealed and Coated Boron Nitride,” submitted to Journal of Spacecrafts and Rockets, 2015.