Rapidly decaying fast electron emission produced during fracture of organic and inorganic materials

The present paper reports the rapidly decaying fast electron emission produ ced during fracture of materials and models the dynamics of the process. Th e thermal population in the over-strained sites near the trip of moving cla cks may generate excited carriers whose subsequent non-radiative recombinat ion may release energy which may ionize the surface traps. The electrons le aving surface traps have low energies and their acceleration in the strong field of negatively charged surfaces may lead to the emission of fast elect rons. Considering the basic mechanism of fast-electron emission, expression s are. derived which ale able to explain satisfactorily the temporal, therm al, charge, surface, humidity and other characteristics of the rapidly deca ying fast electron emission produced during cleavage of crystals. After the fracture of materials, the rate of fast electron emission decays with two decay times, where the first decay time is controlled by the Lifetime of ex cited species and the second decay time is controlled by the lifetime of ch arged carriers in the shallow surface traps. The lifetime of. the excited s pecies, lifetime of carriers in the shallow surface traps, and the velocity of cracks can be determined from the measurements of the rapidly decaying fast electron emission produced during fracture of materials.