The Virtual breakdown mechanism is a concept in the field of electrochemistry. In electrochemical reactions, when the cathode and the anode are close enough to each other (i.e., so-called "nanogap electrochemical cells"), the double layer of the regions from the two electrodes is overlapped, forming a large electric field uniformly distributed inside the entire electrode gap. Such high electric fields can significantly enhance the ion migration inside bulk solutions and thus increase the entire reaction rate, akin to the "breakdown" of the reactant(s). However, it is fundamentally different from the traditional "breakdown".
The Virtual breakdown mechanism was discovered in 2017 when researchers studied pure water electrolysis based on deep-sub-Debye-length nanogap electrochemical cells. Furthermore, researchers found the relation of the gap distance between cathodes and anodes to the performance of electrochemical reactions.