School of Materials Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology , North Ave NW, Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0245, United States.
Nano Lett. 2014 Mar 12;14(3):1567-72. doi: 10.1021/nl404819w. Epub 2014 Feb 4.
Contact electrification is about the charge transfer between the surfaces of two materials in a contact-separation process. This effect has been widely utilized in particle separation and energy harvesting, where the charge transfer is preferred to be maximized. However, this effect is always undesirable in some areas such as electronic circuit systems due to the damage from the accumulated electrostatic charges. Herein, we introduced an approach to purposely manipulate the contact electrification process both in polarity and magnitude of the charge transfer through an applied electric field between two materials. Theoretical modeling and the corresponding experiments for controlling the charge transfer between a Pt coated atomic force microscopy tip and Parylene film have been demonstrated. The modulation effect of the electric field on contact electrification is enhanced for a thinner dielectric layer. This work can potentially be utilized to enhance the output performance of energy harvesting devices or nullify contact electric charge transfer in applications where this effect is undesirable.
接触带电是指在接触-分离过程中两个材料表面之间的电荷转移。这种效应在颗粒分离和能量收集中得到了广泛的应用，其中电荷转移被优先最大化。然而，由于积累的静电荷造成的损坏，这种效应在某些领域如电子电路系统中是不希望出现的。在此，我们介绍了一种通过在两个材料之间施加电场来有意控制接触带电过程中电荷转移极性和幅度的方法。已经证明了理论建模和相应的实验可以控制涂覆 Pt 的原子力显微镜针尖和 Parylene 薄膜之间的电荷转移。对于更薄的介电层，电场对接触带电的调制效果得到增强。这项工作可用于提高能量收集器件的输出性能，或者在不希望出现这种效应的应用中消除接触电荷转移。
