Simulation of charge transport and steady state in non-polar media between planar electrodes with insulating layers

Abstract

The transport of charges in non-polar media is governed by drift and diffusion in an electric field. In addition there may be generation and recombination processes that modify the number of charged species in the liquid. When the electrodes are covered with an insulator layer, the field distribution between the electrodes can be changed considerably. Especially for high concentrations of charges, the voltage drop over the insulator layers may be important. This leads to a faster decay of the transient current and a stronger screening of the electric field in the steady state. In this work we present the results of numerical simulations that combine drift, diffusion, generation, recombination and the voltage drop over the insulator layer.