That's an embarrassing error for me since I used Paschen's law in my PhD!
It was a very long time ago.

On Tue, Jun 29, 2010 at 14:35, Felix Lu  wrote:

> Actually at these small gaps, I believe the breakdown tends to follow the
> Paschen curves (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paschen%27s_law). We've been
> able to apply a few hundred volts across 2 micron gaps without arcing in our
> MEMS mirrors -- though we typically don't use such high voltages.
>
> Felix
>