Short circuit TSO currents

Short circuit thermally stimulated discharge [TSO) has been used as a technique to study trapping characteristics of a material(1). We have in mind experiments in which the sample is initially poled under constant applied voltage V
0
through an ohmic contact, until a steady state current i
S
is reached. It was shown by Many and Rakavy that, for a single trap level and trapping time greater than the transit time, the transient current is the sum of i
S
and a negative exponential, dependent on the trapping and de-trapping parameters(2). This simple result comes out because an electrostatic equilibrium is reached, which, afterwards is not changed during the trapping process. It may be concluded that if the temperature were now changed, keeping V
0
on, the change in the current would reflect the change in the free charge population, due to the decrease or increase [temperature up or down) of the de-trapping time. We are assuming that the free mobility μ is independent on the temperature, but it may be shown that the electrostatic equilibrium would not be destroyed even if μ were temperature dependent.