NOTE ON DISCHARGE OF ELECTROPHOTOGRAPHIC MATERIAL BY LIGHT

The discharge behavior of different electrophotographic materials was studied by measuring (dV/dt) - V curves. If it can be shown in a separate experiment that the discharge current is a primary saturated photocurrent (i.e., it is independent of surface potential at high potentials) a simple interpretation of these curves is possible in the saturation region. The shape of the curves is very sensitive to the details of the discharge process. It was shown that the shape of both the (dV/dt) - V and the V(t) curves can be strongly influenced by geometric effects (a change of depletion layer capacitance during discharge without trapping) or by trapping of charge carriers. From these considerations we can conclude that the interpretation of discharge curves V(t) or (dV/dt) (t) requires some care and is only meaningful if the type of discharge current and the voltage dependence of the capacitance are known. © 1969 The American Institute of Physics.