Aspects of Dielectric Breakdown in a Model for Disordered Nonlinear Composites

Abstract

We study dielectric breakdown in a semi-classical bond percolation model for nonlinear composite materials introduced by us and the related breakdown exponent near the percolation threshold in two dimensions. The breakdown exponent after doing finite size scaling analysis is found to be $t_B \simeq$ 1.42. We discuss in detail the differences in our model from the traditional models for dielectric breakdown and argue that our result seems to be different from the standard result of 4/3 obtained in the previous models.