Example 21.

12: Field of a uniformly charged disk

Find the electric field caused by a disk of radius a with a uniform positive surface charge
density (charge per unit area) σ, at a point along the axis of the disk a distance x from its
center. Assume that x is positive.

Solution
This example is an extension of Example 21.10. Figure 1 shows the situation:

dQ
a
O P dEx
x
r x
dr
total charge Q

Fig. 1. Calculating the electric field on the axis of a disk of charge. Red ellipse denotes a
typical ring with inner radius r and width dr localized inside the disk with radius a. The
total charge Q on the disk is assumed to be positive.

As shown in Fig. 1, we can represent the disk as a collection of concentric rings with radii r ranging
from 0 to a, each of them having charge dQ that varies with the ring radius r. Because of the symmetry of
the problem, the total field is fully characterized by its component Ex along the x-axis. Since we know the
electric field of a single ring on its axis of symmetry from Example 21.10, we can calculate the field of the
whole disk as a sum (integral) of contributions from individual rings. In order to do that, we need to express
the charge dQ of the ring as a function of the ring radius r.
The disk has a total charge Q distributed uniformly across its surface and, therefore, the surface charge
density σ is
Q
σ= = constant.
πa2
A typical ring has inner radius r and outer radius r + dr and its area dA can be calculated as

dA = π(r + dr)2 − πr2 = πr2 + 2πrdr + πdr2 − πr2 ≈ 2πrdr,

where we neglected small second-order term πdr2 . Consequently, ring charge dQ is given by

dQ = σdA = 2πσrdr.

After inserting dQ into Eq. (3) of Example 21.10 (where dQ now corresponds to
 of a ring with radius r
the overall charge of the selected ring), we can write for the electric field dE
at point P :

 = 1 dQx 1 (2πσrdr)x
dE ı̂ = ı̂.
4π0 (x2 + r2 )3/2 4π0 (x2 + r2 )3/2

1
  at point P is then the sum of all contributions dE
The total field E  from all the rings that form the disk.
For continuous charge distribution, this summation becomes integration over the whole disk:
  a 
 =  = 1 (2πσrdr)x σx a rdr
E dE 2 + r2 )3/2
ı̂ = 2 + r2 )3/2
ı̂ (1)
all rings 0 4π 0 (x 2 0 0 (x

as x is constant for all the rings. We can evaluate the integral in Eq. (1) by introducing a new variable z as

z = x2 + r2
dz = 2rdr
limits of z : x2 → (x2 + a2 )

After this substitution, Eq. (1) is transformed to

 (x2 +a2 )  (x2 +a2 )  
 σx dz σx 1 σx 1 1
E = ı̂ = ı̂ − = − + ı̂
20 x2 2z 3/2 20 z 1/2 x2 20 (x2 + a2 )1/2 x
 
σ 1
= 1− 2 ı̂ (2)
20 (1 + xa2 )1/2

Equation (2) holds for a positive charge density σ across the disk; if we instead assume a negative charge
density −σ, the symmetry of the problem remains but the x-component of the total electric field points in
the direction of the negative x-axis.

Note
Let us evaluate the total electric field of a disk for distances x which are either much larger or much smaller
than the disk radius a.

(1) x  a
In this limit, we can use the binomial expansion

n(n − 1)y 2
(1 + y)n ∼
= 1 + ny + + ...,
2
which holds for |y| < 1. Identifying y with a2 /x2 , n with (−1/2) and keeping only the linear term in the
above expansion, Eq. (2) becomes
  

 ∼ σ 1  a 2 σ a2 Q a2 1 Q
E = 1− 1− ı̂ = ı̂ = ı̂ = ı̂ (3)
20 2 x 40 x2 40 πa2 x2 4π0 x2

which is equal to the electric field of a point charge Q situated at the disk center. This is the same result we
found for a uniformly charged ring in Example 21.10 and for a uniformly charged line in Example 21.11.
In Fig. 2, the ratio of the exact electric field of a charged disk given by Eq. (2) to the approximate electric
field of Eq. (3) is shown as a function of the normalized distance from the disk (x/a) (blue curve). As we
can see, for x/a > 13, the two solutions differ by less than 0.5%.

(2) x  a
In this limit, the term
1
a2 1/2
→0
(1 + x2 )

2
and, consequently,

 ∼ σ
E = ı̂. (4)
20
Thus, the electric field is uniform, independent of the distance from the disk, and perpendicular to the disk
in the direction away from it (for positive surface charge density) or towards it (for negative surface charge
density). As we will see in Example 22.7, this is equivalent to the electric field of an infinite charged plane
sheet with uniform charge density σ.
In Fig. 2, the ratio of the exact electric field of a charged disk given by Eq. (2) to the approximate electric
field of Eq. (4) is shown as a function of the normalized distance from the disk (x/a) (red curve). As we can
see, for x/a < 0.005, the two solutions differ by less than 0.5%. Hence, for distances from the disk x < 0.005a,
the electric field of the charged disk can be approximately regarded as uniform.

1.0

0.8
Eexact / Eapprox

0.6 1 Q σ
Eapprox = =
2πε0 a2 2ε0

0.4
1 Q
Eapprox =
0.2 4πε0 x2

0.0
0.001 0.01 0.1 1 10
x/a

Fig. 2. Comparison of the exact electric field Eexact given by Eq. (2) and approximate
electric fields Eapprox given by Eq. (3) (blue curve) or Eq. (4) (red curve) as a function
of the normalized distance x/a from a uniformly charged disk of radius a with the surface
charge density σ. The total charge of the disk Q = πa2 σ.