Eur. Phys. J. B 12, 61-65 (1999)
https://doi.org/10.1007/s100510050977

Excess thermal-noise in the electrical breakdown of random resistor networks

¹ Dipartimento Scienza Materiali, Università di Lecce, Via Arnesano, 73100 Lecce, Italy
² Istituto Nazionale di Fisica della Materia (INFM), Italy
³ Uppsala University, Material Science Department, Angstrom Laboratory, Box 534, 75121 Uppsala, Sweden
⁴ JATE University, Department of Experimental Physics, Dom ter 9, 6720 Szeged, Hungary

Corresponding author: ^a pennetta@fisica.unile.it

Received: 13 April 1999
Revised: 7 May 1999
Published online: 15 November 1999

Abstract

We discuss a new type of excess noise strongly sensitive to non-homogeneous Joule heating of random resistor network and associated with local sources of thermal noise. The evolution of the network towards an electrical breakdown of conductor-insulator type is then studied by using a biased percolation model and it is analysed in terms of an excess-noise temperature. Monte Carlo simulation results show a significant increase of the excess-noise temperature over the average temperature of the network. Remarkably the excess-noise temperature scales with the resistance with an exponent of about 3. The predictivity of the model can be tested on thin film resistors where the determination of the excess noise temperature should provide a valuable indicator of the defectiveness of the film.