Analysis and Numerics of a Stationary Drift-Diffusion Model for Electrical Discharge in MEMS

Abstract

This work presents the analysis and numerical simulation of a stationary drift-diffusion model for electrical discharge in micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS). The model couples Poisson's equation for the electrostatic potential with continuity equations for positive ions and electrons, incorporating a Townsend-type impact ionization source term that depends exponentially on the electric field magnitude. We prove the existence of weak solutions under physically relevant assumptions and establish uniform bounds on the carrier densities. The proof relies on a regularization-approximation scheme with truncated nonlinearities, monotone operator theory (Browder-Minty), iterative energy estimates, and Stampacchia-type truncation arguments. We further develop a robust finite element solver to simulate the carrier density and electrostatic potential profiles for several geometries, including two-dimensional domains and a three-dimensional axisymmetric geometry.