Fracto‐emission accompanying adhesive failure

For a wide range of materials, emission of electrons (EE), positive ions (PIE), and photons (phE) is observed accompanying fracture. Here we report on work concerning emission from adhesive failure. The systems studied include interfacial failure between epoxy—brittle materials, polybutadiene—glass, and pressure sensitive adhesives—polymers. When interfacial failure occurs, it produces highly excited surfaces with intense charge separation. De‐excitation in the presence of surface charge produces intense, long lasting (several minutes) emission. Energy distribution curves for both EE and PIE decrease monotonically with a tail extending out to several hundred eV. For a few systems we compare EE and phE which show different decay characteristics.