The electret behavior of 66 nylon

The subject of electrets and their theoretical justification is, at best, confused. First, to review briefly the history of the subject, the name “electret” was devised as an electrical analogue to “magnet”. As the name implies an electret is an object having associated with it an apparently permanent electric field. This must be clearly distinguished from a battery which can continuously supply current. A stable electret cannot supply current. The field can be observed by a simple experiment using an electrometer in which one electrode is connected to one side of the electret and the other electrode is brought up to the other side of the electret. The work performed in bringing the electrode up to the side of the electret, passing through the field gradient results in the accumulation of charge in the electrometer. In actual practice, a capacitor is placed across the electrometer to accumulate the charge and a voltage is thereby observed.