2.

9 Conductors and Electrical Screening 33

F by A F we obtain the potential of a point dipole:

u(r’)ldr’ldF’n (r’ - r)
= IAF (r - r’)3

(2.20)

where
Q= 1 AF
a(r’)dF’.

The expression p is called dapole moment of the point dipole; this is a vector quantity with direction
from the negative charge to the positive charge. Q is the charge.

2.9 Conductors and Electrical Screening

A conductor is a macroscopic object in which charges are contained which
can move about freely (i.e. without doing work). Inside the conductor the
electric field E therefore vanishes, because only then a charge can move about
freely in the conductor. It follows that if the conductor is given a charge,
this charge must be located in a thin layer at its surface. This must be so
because if we consider an arbitrary closed Gaussian surface wholly within
the conductor material, this cannot contain charge since everywhere on the
surface E = 0. Thus inside the conductor the charge is zero at every point
(the charges of the conductor material itself averaging out to zero). It follows
that the surface of the conductor is an equipotential surface.

Example 2.14: The charged sphere

Let a spherically shaped conductor be given with charge q. Explain with the help of potential
considerations that the charge accumulates on the outer surface of the conductor.

S o l u t i o n : We consider a sphere with external radius b and an internal hollow space of radius
TO = a < b. We subdivide the intermediate region into concentric spherical shells of radii T I , 7 - 2 , . . . ,
Each shell initially has charge zero. Since the sphere is a conductor, each of its parts has the same
constant potential. If we give, e.g. the sphere with radius r2 the charge q, the potential changes
for all shells with radius ri, i > 3. Thus the gradient of a potential arises. Obviously the energy of
the system becomes minimal when the charge q is located on the outermost shell (recall that the
modulus of the Coulomb potential decreases with increase of the distance from the charge).

The electric field inside arbitrarily shaped conducting bodies whose sur-
faces are charged but which do not contain any enclosed charges is always
zero. This is so, because if we apply to the interior the integral form of the