Constraints on contact charging of insulators. II. Energy constraints

For pt.I see ibid., vol.19, p.95 (1986). When two different polymers are brought into contact, charge transfers freely, in general, from one to the other, even though the states involved are strongly localised in space. It might therefore be expected that a previously-charged polymer should be able to share its charge with an uncharged sample of the same material, if the two are paced in contact. Experiments reported in this paper show that such charge-sharing does not occur. The authors believe that the charge transfer is inhibited by the localisation of electron states in energy; their observations support recent suggestions that the energy states is strongly shifted by polarisation when a net charge is present.