Discussion Forum

In my simulation, I am working with a stack of different materials in the following arrangement: Aluminum (top), Copper, SiO2, and Aluminum (bottom). When I apply voltages to the planes or boundaries of the Aluminum top and bottom blocks, I observe that the electric field is concentrated in the Copper layer rather than in the SiO2 layer. Given that SiO2 is an insulator, I expected the electric field to concentrate in the SiO2 layer. Typically when modeling capacitive problems, the electric field is concentrated in the dielectric layer and the conductors have constant electric potential which leads to negligible electric field in it.

Interestingly, if I assume that copper is a perfect conductor and the same voltage is applied to both the Aluminum top block's planes and the Copper planes, the electric field is concentrated within the SiO2 layer. This leads us to conclude that the electric field distribution seems to depend more on the planes of voltage application rather than on the material properties.

Could you please provide guidance on how to address this issue? Specifically, is there any way to ensure that the electric field concentrates in the SiO2 layer as expected while still applying the voltage to just the Aluminum blocks? Any suggestions or adjustments to the simulation parameters that could help achieve the desired results would be greatly appreciated.