Mitigating massive triboelectric charging of drill in shadowed region of moon

Abstract

A scheme based on natural quantum electric field tunneling to mitigate the substantial charge deposition due to triboelectric (frictional) charging from the drill setup, operating in the shadowed region of the Moon, is presented. We have shown that the micro (nano) structuring of the surface of the drill setup might efficiently support the charge dissipation and mitigate the massive charge deposition (i.e., 100s kV - 10s MV) to a significantly lower magnitude (e.g., few 10s V). Physically, the micro (nano) tips act as field emission (FE) centers and generate sufficiently large FE current through quantum field tunneling 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.