SURFACE CONDUCTION ON INSULATORS - ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION OF THEFARADAY CAGE EXPERIMENT

We provide a quantitative analysis of the Faraday cage method for dete rmining the leakage of electric charge across the surface of insulator s, and correct some inconsistencies in earlier work. We show that it i s possible to distinguish between the mechanisms of surface conduction and surface charge driven flow, Since in the latter case the time con stant depends on the amount of the initial charge and the logarithmic decay rate slows down at long times. (C) 1997 American Institute of Ph ysics.