Reproducible and Controllable Contact Electrification on a Thin Insulator

The mechanism of contact electrification on an insulator is one of the oldest problems in physics. The major problem is the lack of reliable data on the contact electrification and its dissipation, because of poor experimental reproducibility on even the sign of the contact electrified charge. Here we report a novel microscopic method with a bias voltage to obtain reproducible and controllable contact electrification on a thin insulator, and the first experimental result on the dissipation of the contact electrified charge.