Wien dissociation as a rate process

Abstract

It is shown that the Wien dissociation effect at very high fields in media of low dielectric constant may be treated as an elementary rate process through the col of an electrostatic barrier. A result closely related to Onsager's is obtained. Coulombic interaction is postulated across only a fraction of the association distance, so that the Debye length need not be as large as for Onsager's derivation. The resulting model is applied to recent work on the dissociation effect at interfaces and in nerve membranes.