Measurement of mobility of positive charge carriers in polyethylene

Abstract

The presence of space charge in insulation materials has been an issue with respect to their life performance in high voltage application systems. The dynamics of space charge in polymeric materials has been widely examined through a pulse electroacoustic (PEA) method over the decades. Theoretical efforts have also been made to explain the nature of these charge carriers. However their electrical properties are not fully revealed. The transport of charge carriers is directly linked with the conduction mechanism and the underlying trapping characteristics in polymeric insulation materials. In this paper, the velocity of positive charge carriers is measured by observing the transport of positive charge packets in additive-free low density polyethylene using PEA technique. The charge packets are generated using a pulse excitation method, i.e., adding a pulse voltage onto the applied bias dc voltage across the polymer film. The negative differential mobility was observed by inspecting the dependence of the velocity of positive charge packets on the applied electric field.

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ORCID for Paul Lewin: orcid.org/0000-0002-3299-2556

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