Journal of the Physical Society of Japan Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1982, pp. 208-212 On the Theory of Surface Charge Decay in Dielectrics Ashock KuMAR* and Rabinder NaTH Department of Physics, University of Roorkee, Roorkee-247672, India (Received February 23, 1981) An improved theory of the surface potential decay in trap free dis presented. The effect of relaxation time on surface charge decay characteristics (SCDO) is theoretically investigated. A condition for minimum surface potential required to observe transit time from SCDC is obtained. §1. Introduction The results of the study of the transport properties of polymers have proved to be useful in exploring the various technological applications of polymers. A knowledge of the carrier mobility in polymers is of immense importance in understanding the charge storage properties of these materials, and is pertinent to the development of charge storage devices. Due to very low mobility of charge carriers in insulators (~10~'°-107"* em?V~'sec“1),3~*) the surface potential decay (SPD) technique has been sucessfully applied to measure the drift mobility in Poly-ethylene,®? Poly-vinyl chloride,” Teflon*” etc. The surface potential decay is considered due to drift of injected charge carriers under its own field, and is observed over the extended period of time to determine the value of mobility. Until now, the theories,‘-*) put forward to explain the SPD phenomenon, are confined to the materials having high resistivity (~10'°— 10'* ohm-cm). High resistivity, here, implies that the contribution of the thermal charge carriers i.e. the intrinsic conductivity towards SPD is negligible. In case of dielectrics having the finite intrinsic conductivity the previous theory’? needs modification, In the present work, the effect of ohmic relaxation time (Kéo/oo) on SPD has been theoretically investigated under open circuit conditions. The modified theory gives an interesting condition, necessary for the mea- surement of the transit time of the charge * On study leave from M. M. College, Khekra (Meerut). carrier in the dielectrics by the SPD technique [See eq. (20)]. §2. Theory The surface charge is assumed to be injected into the dielectric at the open surface (x=0), as shown in Fig. 1, in a time small compared to the ohmic relaxation time. The charge carrier, taken as positive, drifts under its own field leading to the surface charge decay phe- nomenon. Here, we consider the dielectric possessing finite intrinsic conductivity 9; Pol, where q is the elementary charge, po is the thermally generated charge carriers density mobility. and pis the dri SURTACE POTENTIAL Pro it) a es oa il GROUNDED ELECTRODE Fig. 1. Schematic representation of surface charge decay method. The surface charge decay theory is developed by neglecting the diffusion and trapping of charge carriers and considering only one dimensional variations with the co-ordinate x, so that the field is purely x-directed. Under the open-circuit condition, the general charge transport equations for real dielectrics may be written as follows: 2081982) KogSe =p, (Poisson’s equation), (1) %J.4r 9 (Continuity equation), (2) Ox © at J-=(60+p,E (Kirchhoff’s law), 3) where J, is the conduction current density; E=E(x, 0) is the electric field; p, is the injected free charge carrier density; K is the dielectric constant of the material and e is the permittivity of free space. The ficld inside the bulk of the sample can be calculated with the help of Poisson’s eq. (1) as, 1 : E(x, )=EQ, ore pdx’, (4) so that ca) E(x, 1)=£0,1)+ Fo, 0 © where Q(t) is the charge per unit area, E(d, 1) and E(0, 1) are the fields at the rear electrode and front surface. The eqs. (1)-(3) can be solved to obtain, OE (G+ PsH)E+ Kegs, = F(t), (6a) where F(t) is the integration constant. In open- circuit, the integration constant F()=0, which ives: dE (Go pWE+ Koos =0 (@) On eliminating p, in eq. (6b) with the help of eq. (1) we have @M where t= Keo/ao is the ohmic relaxation time of the dielectric. The integration of eq. (7) over the sample thickness, d, yields av Vii, am ye Sp tg tpMlE*d, )- £20, )=0. (8) The importance of the relaxation time in drift mobility measurements from SPD technique can be visulised as follows. An expression for the flow line of leading front obtained from velocity equation dx(t)/d¢= E(x, 1) and eq. (is given by On the Theory of Surface Charge Decay in... 209 o=2f1-en(-S], @ where Vo is the initial surface potential. Equation (9) predicts that the maximum distance travelled by the leading front is WV ot[d=dz)t,, when (;(=?/Vou) is the transit time of the leading front of charge carrier. It reveals that if <7, the leading front traverses a maximum distance less than the sample thickness, d, and the leading front will never arrive at the collecting electrode. Clearly in this case, the injected charge is removed from the sample surface largely by ohmic conduction. However, for t>t;, the leading front traverses the entire sample. A similar condition is also given by Batra et al.” The general eqs. (7) and (8), which include the contribution of relaxation time, may be analysed to study the surface potential decay characteristics in open circuit with the condi- tion that t>1,. However, for very high value of the relaxation time i.e. as t+00, eq. (7) leads to an equation similar to that of Perlman and Sonnonstine® for trap free dielectrics. Ifall the surface charge is injected at time 1=0 into the bulk and the “fully” space charge imited (SCL) condition holds i.e. E(0, )= eq. (8) may be written as: wv Vil, Fe ty THE )=0, (10) For different time zones, the nature of surface potential decay characteristics in an open circuit may now be analysed as follows: Zone (a): Otp>t, eq. (13) reduces to dV _uV3 Gn a4) The above equation showing the time independent discharge rate, has been obtained by other research workers.*:®) Zone (b): O ty>t, eq. (17) becomes dvd? aera as) as obtained previously.*® Zone (¢): Odjyit. How- ever, for good observations the applied field Fig. 3. Time derivative of surface potential (—dV/d?) versus time plots at different values of relaxation 107° em? V. time, +, taking d=20 ym, 4 * and initial surface potential Vo=2 kV. ai (vse! sree) 40} Fig. 4. (a) Time derivative of surface pot tial ( ® dVjde) versus time plots at different initial surface potentials taking d=20 ym. and 1=10-'° cm?V~!s~', Solid lines represent the plots at r= 10° s. and dotted lines represent the plots at r=50ss. (b) Initial surface potential versus transit time plots at different values of relaxation time.212 should be much higher than the value given by the above condition. Figure 4(a) shows —dV/dt vs 1 plots for various initial surface potentials at 1=50s, and t=10°s. At higher values of relaxation time, the transit time of the carrier depends on the surface potential and varies at tp~V~', This dependence is shown in the inset Fig. 4(b). For high values of surface potential and at low relaxation times, the dependence of the transit time on initial surface potential is the same as that for large relaxation times. However, for relatively low values of surface potential, the dependence of t; on potential shows deviation from linear behaviour as depicted in the inset Fig. 4(b). The solid curve in Fig. 4(b), for large relaxation time (z= 10° s) resembles with the curve obtained by many workers.°*) The dotted curve of Fig. 4(b) exhibits the effect of relaxation time on the transit time measure- ments. Ashok Kumar and Rabinder NaH (ol. 51, Acknowledgement One of the authors (A. K.) gratefully acknowledges the financial support provided by University Grants Commission, India. References 1) P.K.C. Pillai, K. Jain and V. K, Jain: Phys, Status Solidi (a) 13 (1972) 341. 2) J. Van Turnhout: in Electrets, Charge Storage and Transport in Dielectrics (The Electro-Chemical Society, Princeton, N.J., 1973) p. 230-251, 3) D. K. Davies and P. J. Lock: J. Electrochem. Soe. 120 (1973) 266, 4) G.M. Sessler and J. E. West: J. Appl. Phys. 47 (1976) 3480, 5) M.M. Perlman, T. J. Sonnonstine and J. A. St. Pierre: J. Appl. Phys. 47 (1976) 5016. 6) JR. Ranicar, R. J. Fleming and C. A. Legge: Aust. J. Phys. 24 (1971) 325. 7) B. Gross, G. M. Sessler and J. E. 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