A new method has been developed to measure exo‐electron emissions stimulated by frictional heating for a ball‐on‐disk sliding where a tungsten carbide was biased at +15 V dc to collect exo‐electrons emitted from a &ggr;‐irradiated hot‐pressed alumina disk. Exo‐electron emission’s signals were detected above a certain critical velocity when the contact surface was frictionally heated to a critical temperature of 250 °C and emitted exo‐electrons. Sliding temperatures at any conditions of load and velocity were thus estimated using the temperature calculation program M. F. Ashby, J. Abulawi, and H. S. Kong [T‐MAPSBackgroundReadingandUserManual, Cambridge University Engineering Department (Cambridge University, London, 1992); Tribology Trans.34, 577 (1991)]. This method provides a versatile method of measuring the sliding temperature of ceramics. ©1995 American Institute of Physics.