Conduction transients in single-crystal octadecane

Charge transients were measured in high-quality single-crystal octadecane after electron beam irradiation. The signals produced were of significantly greater duration than the ionization pulse but were not interpretable by conventional uniform field time-of-flight analysis. By assuming that the specimens contained a strong inbuilt polarization field, it was possible to predict the properties of the observed charge transients and obtain values for the positive and negative drift mobilities. The results indicated a positive species with a mobility of 0.7 × 10^?4 m² V^?1 s^?1 and a negative carrier value of 1.6 × 10^?4 m² V^?1 s^?1. The standard deviations observed in the data were large, being 0.3 × 10^?4 m² V^?1 s^?1 and 0.8 × 10^?4 m² V^?1 s^?1, respectively. This scatter was significantly in excess of the estimated experimental error.