Terminology

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• Antistatic: The property of a material that inhibits triboelectric charging.
   
• Antistatic Agent: A substance that is part of or topically applied to a material to render the material surface static dissipative or less susceptible to triboelectric charging.
   
• Common Type Plastics: Description given to plastic materials that can generate and/or hold a measurable static charge.
   
• Conductive: A known physical property of a material which allows charge movement. Less than 1 x 10⁵ ohms/square surface resistivity, or less than 1 x 10⁴ ohms-cm volume resistivity.
   
• Coulomb: this is defined as The unit of electrical charge. It is equal to the charge carried by 6.24 X 10¹⁸ electrons.
   
• Current Transient: A rapid transfer of energy between two objects. A current transient typically has a rise time of 1-5 nanoseconds (10-9 seconds).
   
• Dissipative: A standard physical property of a material which allows charge movement. Equal to or greater than 1 x 10⁵ ohms/sq. to less than 1 x 10¹² ohms/sq. surface resistivity or equal to, or greater than 1 x 10⁴ to less than 1 x 10¹¹ ohms-cm volume resistivity.
   
• Discharge Time: The overall time necessary for a voltage (due to an electrostatic charge) to decay from an initial starting value to some arbitrarily chosen final value.  Typically represented in milliseconds.
   
• Electromagnetic Interference (EMI): A radiated pulse of energy capable of causing unwanted current flow in electronic devices.
   
• Electrostatic Discharge (ESD): A transfer of an electrostatic charge, either by direct contact or induced field,  between bodies at different potentials.

• Electrostatic Attraction (ESA): The attraction of airborne particulate between bodies of different potentials.
   
• ESD/ESA susceptible devices: All electrical and electronic devices, sub-assemblies, assemblies, products or systems that may be destroyed or degraded due to an ESD/ESA event.
   
• Faraday Cage: A totally closed conductive container which provides ESD and stray field protection.
   
• Homogeneous: Grounding characteristics which are spread out uniformly throughout a material. Of uniform make-up or structure, or of the same or similar kind.
   
• Induction: A process by which a static field can induce charging of a nearby conductor without contacting it physically.
   
• Insulative: The ability to stop the passage of static electricity into or out by interposing material that acts as a barrier. A material having a surface resistivity of at least 1 x 10¹² ohms/square.
   
• Joule: A unit of measurement for energy. One joule is equal to one volt of potential times one coulomb of electric charge.
   
• Resistance: The ratio of voltage applied to current flowing between a pair of terminals, without regard to the path which the current takes (ohms).
   
• Resistivity: The electrical resistance of a surface (per square of area) or of a volume (per unit of thickness. Volume: ohms-cm and/or Surface: ohms/sq.).
   
• Surface Resistance: The ratio of DC voltage to the current flowing between two electrodes of specified configuration that contact the same side of a material. This measurement is expressed in ohms.
   
• Surface Resistivity: For electric current flowing across a surface, the ratio of DC voltage drop per unit length to the surface current per unit width. In effect, the surface resistivity is the resistance between two opposite sides of a square and its independent of the size of a square or its dimensional units. Surface resistivity is expressed in ohms/square.
   
• Triboelectric charging: The generation of electrostatic charges when two materials make contact or are rubbed together then separated.
   
• Volume Resistivity: The ratio of the DC voltage per unit area passing through a material. Generally given in ohm-centimeters.