Maxwell-displacement Current measuring method using thermal stimulation, called Thermally stimulated current (TSC) measurement, is widely used in a variety of research fields, i.e., physics, electronics, electrical engineering, chemistry, ceramics, and biology. TSC is short-circuit current that flows owing to the displacement of charges in samples during heating. TSC measurement is very simple, but TSC curves give very important information on charge behaviors. In the 1970s, TSC measurement contributed greatly to the development of electrical insulation engineering, semiconductor device technology, and so forth. Accordingly, the TSC experimental technique and its analytical method advanced. Over the past decades, many new molecules and advanced functional materials have been discovered and developed. Along with this, TSC measurement has again been paid much attention in industries and academic laboratories as a way of characterizing newly discovered materials and devices. In this presentation I report the latest research trend in the TSC method for the development of materials and devices in Japan, and introduce a novel technique coupled with TSC method and electric field induced optical second harmonic generation method (EFISHG), which has been developed by my group for characterizing interface traps of organic thin double layers. |