Insulator-insulator contact charging and its relationship to atmospheric pressure

Metal-metal and metal-insulator contact charging are well-known phenomena with good theoretical understanding. However, insulator-insulator charging is not as well understood. Surface ion exchange is suspected of being the mechanism of insulator-insulator triboelectric charging. Experiments have shown that the amount of charge exchange is highly dependent on the atmospheric pressure of the gas. We present a two-phase model based on an ideal gas of singly-charged ions in equilibrium with a submonolayer adsorbed film. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.