Measurement of Electric Charge in a Charged Hydroxyapatite Dielectric Using Pendant Drop

A simple noninvasive measurement method which allows one to determine the trapped charge in a biocompatible hydroxyapatite dielectric is developed. The hydroxyapatite samples are charged by electron beam with energy 30 keV and total irradiated charge ranging from 2 × 10^-9 C to 2 × 10^-7 C. The value of the trapped charge is determined by analyzing the shape change of a liquid droplet hanging from a needle in proximity of the charged sample surface. The shape change of the pendant drop in the field of gravity is commonly utilized in the measurements of the surface free tension (SFT) of liquids. The external electric field leads to a further modification of the droplet shape and to an effective change of the SFT. The change of the SFT as a function of distance between the droplet and sample and the critical distance at which the droplet detaches from the needle are measured for various values of the irradiated charge. These two quantities are also derived theoretically by considering the trapped charge as a single fitting parameter. We can thus determine the trapped charge in two independent noninvasive ways. It is noteworthy that our method is easily implementable into the standard pendant drop setups. As a practical application of the method, a long-term charge stability of the charged hydroxyapatite is demonstrated, thus paving the way toward quantitative studies of its bioactivity in dependence on the value of the trapped charge.