Mitigating massive triboelectric charging of drill in shadowed region of Moon

Abstract

ABSTRACT A scheme based on natural quantum electric field tunnelling to mitigate the substantial charge deposition due to triboelectric (frictional) charging from the drill set-up, operating in the shadowed region of the Moon, is presented. We have shown that the micro (nano) structuring of the surface of the drill set-up might efficiently support the charge dissipation and mitigate the massive charge deposition (i.e. from hundreds of kV to tens of MV) to a significantly lower magnitude (e.g. few tens of V). Physically, the micro (nano) tips act as field emission (FE) centres and generate sufficiently large FE current through quantum field tunnelling to compensate for the negative tribocharging current. Our calculations demonstrate that the instrument surface fabricated with 10 nm spherical tips, operating in the electron-rich region within the permanently shadowed crater, maintains itself to a much lower negative potential of ∼23 V – it significantly contrasts with the case of planar surfaces where the tribocharging dominates and develops a substantial negative potential of the order of ∼100 MV.