it was called flakes in the scientific article that got read by the eyes of mine (old article, not the current one) but heat particles sound more easy to understand since it causes heat to be felt when it gets onto people's heat receptors.

heat receptors are negatively charged so positive electromagnetic force pulls them (electronegativity is a measure of positive electromagnetic force that can reach outside the atom).

so no, it is just a personal term but it is useful to understand why stuff happens, though it lacks in accuracy, producing only a vague prediction of what may happen (professional might be using a better term, but personally not a professional nor writing a thesis so not bothered since personally only want to understand what happened in an ELI5 way).