Title: charging potential
Long Title: IUPAC Gold Book - charging potential
DOI: 10.1351/goldbook.09235
Status: current

Definition
Electric potential of the surface region of an insulating sample, caused by irradiation.

Notes
1) Different charging potentials can occur on different areas or at different depths in a sample, arising from sample inhomogeneities or non-uniform intensity of the incident flux of radiation.
2) The surface and bulk potentials can differ, for example as a result of band bending, interface dipoles, and charge centres.

Related Term
- flux: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/09251

Source
- PAC, 2020, 92, 1781. 'Glossary of methods and terms used in surface chemical analysis (IUPAC Recommendations 2020)' on page 1800 (https://doi.org/10.1515/pac-2019-0404)

Other Outputs
- html: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/09235/html
- json: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/09235/json
- xml: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/09235/xml

Citation: Citation: 'charging potential' in IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry; 2025. Online version 5.0.0, 2025. 10.1351/goldbook.09235
License: The IUPAC Gold Book is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) for individual terms.
Collection: If you are interested in licensing the Gold Book for commercial use, please contact the IUPAC Executive Director at executivedirector@iupac.org .
Disclaimer: The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) is continuously reviewing and, where needed, updating terms in the Compendium of Chemical Terminology (the IUPAC Gold Book). Users of these terms are encouraged to include the version of a term with its use and to check regularly for updates to term definitions that you are using.
Accessed: 2026-04-21T02:19:22+00:00