The design of a glove box for the handling of electrostatic sensitive devices within an inert gas environment demands an understanding of the problems, selective specification of equipment, construction techniques, and test procedures to achieve a satisfactory application.

The moisture free gas passing through the glove box generates static electricity by friction of moving "bodies" creating ions. In practice it is almost impossible to avoid friction in the processing of materials and when one "body" experiences friction with another "body", the body with the lower work function loses an electron to the body with a higher work function. The body with excess electrons takes on a negative charge and the body with a reduced number of electrons that of a positively charge.

This is however only a temporary change, for as soon as the opportunity presents itself the electrons will neutralise themselves in either a controlled manner or uncontrolled manner.

Uncontrolled static can have serious detrimental effects on process handling of electronic devices. Control is achieved by neutralising electrostatic charges via ion bombardment of the workspace, and this is best achieved utilising the principles of fluid dynamics to distribute the ion bombardment to the desired work zone by laminar flow.

Ion bombardment is achieved by a high voltage ion generator (ioniser) which delivers a high speed pulsed voltage to a series of electrode probes. Intelligent static elimination enables the quantity of positive and negative ions to be generated to maintain the optimum balance for neutralising the target zone.

Additional features such as metal coated glass windows and bonded grounding against E.S.D. including glove ports, make sure our glove boxes are equipped with static elimination controls which go a long way towards minimising the problems associated with handling sensitive electronic materials.

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