Keyword picked by Kelly Miller. The Debye length is the scale over which mobile charge carriers screen out electric fields in plasmas and other conductors.It is also known as the shielding distance as it represents the distance over which the charged surface is shielded from the bulk. double layer is formed in the liquid to neutralize the charged surface and this creates a potential between the surface and any point in the mass of the suspending liquid. This charged surface and the resulting charge distribution in the solution is known as the electrical double layer (EDL).