Remote sensing of ESD through optical and magnetic radiation fields

The optical radiation and the magnetic field generated by electrostatic dis charges are measured, together with their current signatures. The observati ons show that during the initial growth, the temporal variation of the opti cal pulse is similar to that of the current. The two waveforms deviate from each other during the decaying part of the discharge, the optical signal h aving a longer duration. The peak current is linearly correlated with a cor relation coefficient of 0.9, to the peak optical radiation. The measured cu rrents were used to calculate the magnetic fields and a good agreement was observed between the measurements and calculations. The results show that b oth the optical radiation and the magnetic field can be used to sense remot ely the currents in electrostatic discharges.