Local elastic and thermal behaviors of dielectric breakdown regions in multilayer ceramic capacitors

Local elastic and thermal behaviors of dielectric breakdown regions in BaTiO3 based multilayer ceramic capacitors were investigated by acoustic and thermal mode scanning probe microscopy. Nanoscale elastic microstructures closely related to the dielectric breakdown-induced stress release was found to develop in the BaTiO3 ceramic grains adjacent to the dielectric breakdown region. Such nanostructures could be supposed to be the origin of the elementary structures for the failure of MLCC. The breakdown region exhibits very lower thermal conductivity due to the possible glass phase formation. Such new findings provide a new clue to further understand the breakdown mechanism of multilayer ceramic capacitors.