Characteristics of Corona-Charged PET Sandwich Electrets

Abstract

Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is one of the major electret materials which has been studied and widely used in charge storage applications for a long time. The homo-charge and hetero-charge formation responsible for the electret effect of PET can be explained by the dipolar polarization, space charge separation and charge injection respectively as a result of contact poling or corona charging. These processes are also verifiable from studies of surface charges and thermally stimulated depolarization current (TSDC) of the PET films. Now consider a stack of PET films charged under the same condition as a single film. It would be intuitively expected that the electret effects of the individual films of the stack should be different due to their different positions in the stack. However, in a recent study on charged PET stacks, it was found that the electret effects of the individual films are quite similar. The surface charges of the individual films are about the same and they sum to make same total as a single charged PET film. On the other hand, the TSDC thermograms of individual films show similar characteristics in the thermal relaxation processes where homo- and hetero- charge effects are still observed. From the TSDC results, especially for the film in the middle of a triple layer sandwich, it shows clearly dipolar polarization and charge injection related peaks. These findings agree with the results of surface charge studies of the individual films.