LESSON 1: Conductors and Capacitors

Electrostatic Equilibrium

A conductor permits free electrons, also called conduction electrons , to freely

move between and among atoms. Every time a conductor receives an excess charge, it
scatters about the conducting material such that the totality of repulsive forces inside the
conductor will be reduced. This is referred to as electrostatic equilibrium. As soon as a
charged conducting material reaches electrostatic equilibrium, charges can no longer
move about the surface.
The first characteristic of conducting materials at electrostatic equilibrium is that
the field and the conductor’s surface are directed perpendicular to each other. Hence, if
the conductor is spherical, the perpendicular field vectors are aligned with the sphere’s
center. If it is, however, shaped irregularly, then the field vector will be perpendicular to
any line tangential to the surface.
Figure 1 below shows how free charges are affected by an electric field inside a
conducting material. Since the field is a vector, with parallel and perpendicular
components, the parallel component exerts a parallel force on the point charge, hence
canceling out. The free charges are then distributed until the electric field and the
surface are perpendicular.

Figure 1: Perpendicularity of electric field and conductor’s surface

Another important thing to note is that under electrostatic equilibrium, the charges
are distributed such that no electric field is present inside the conducting material.
Consider, for instance, a conductor close to a positive charge. The metal’s conduction
electrons are attracted to the external positively charged particle and freely move toward
that region. This region “to which” these free electrons moved now has more electrons
than protons inside the atoms, whereas the region “from where” the electrons displaced
contains more protons than electrons. This results in a negative region close to the
charge, and a positive region on the other end, as shown in figure 2 below. This
separation between the equal and opposite electric charges is referred to as polarization.

Figure 2: Polarization of a conductor by an external charge 𝑞

Electric Potential of Conductors

Recall that Gauss’s Law proves that in the electric field of a charged sphere, the
field outside the sphere is similar to that of a single charged particle. Hence, the electric
potential will also be the same and is given by the equation:
𝑄 𝑘𝑄
𝑉= =
4𝜋𝜀0 𝑟 𝑟
It has been established that the electric field within a conducting sphere is
equivalent to zero. This concludes that the electric potential will remain constant at the
value that it has reached on the conductor’s surface.
The potential difference, or voltage, inside a conducting material in electrostatic
equilibrium, will also remain at this constant value, considering that the electric field is
equivalent to the rate of change of the electric potential. Figure 3 shows the relationship
between and among these variables.

Figure 3:Potential for a charged conducting sphere

 Example
A conducting hollow ball with a radius of 0.5 m has a charge with magnitude 4.3 μC.
What is the electric potential at the surface of the conductor?

Solution:
Given:
𝑟 = 0.5 m 𝑄 = 4.3 𝜇C → 4.3 × 10−6 C

𝑁m2
𝑘𝑄 (8.988 × 109 ) (4.3 × 10−6 C)
C2
𝑉surface = =
𝑟 0.5 m
𝑉surface = 7.74 × 104 V
Therefore, the electric potential at the surface of the conductor is 7.74 × 104 V

Capacitors

Capacitors store energy by holding apart pairs of opposite charges. Since a

positive charge and a negative charge attract each other and naturally want to come
together, when they are held a fixed distance apart (for example, by a gap of insulating
material such as air), their mutual attraction stores potential energy that is released if they
are re-united. The simplest design for a capacitor is a parallel-plate, which consists of two
metal plates with a gap between them: electrons are placed onto one plate (the negative
plate), while an equal amount of electrons are removed from the other plate (the positive
plate).
As you may recall, charges create electric field lines that point away from positive
charges and towards negative charges. In a parallel-plate capacitor, the electric field lines
point straight across the gap between the two plates. We know that electric fields and
voltage differences go hand-in-hand, and so it also turns out that the two plates are at
different voltages. The size of this voltage difference (𝑉) is related to the charges on the
two plates (𝑄):
𝑄 = 𝐶𝑉
The constant 𝐶 is called the capacitance. It determines how much of a charge
difference the capacitor holds when a certain voltage is applied. If a capacitor has very
high capacitance, then a small difference in plate voltage will lead to a huge difference in
the number of electrons (total charge 𝑄) on the two plates. Capacitance is expressed
through the SI unit called farad (F), which is also equivalent to 1 coulomb per volt.
Parallel-Plate Capacitors

In the case of parallel-plate capacitors, the magnitude of the electric field is

determined using Gauss’s law, i.e., by dividing the surface charge density 𝜎 or amount of
charge per unit length) on each plate to the permittivity constant 𝜀0 . This is also equivalent
to the net charge 𝑄 present on each conducting plate divided by the area 𝐴. Therefore,
𝜎 𝑄
𝐸= =
𝜀0 𝜀0 𝐴
Since the value of capacitance is determined according to the shape of the
capacitor, it is always directly proportional to the area of the conducting plate and
inversely proportional to the separation distance between two conducting plates. We can
assign a Gaussian surface to enclose a positive charge q on one of the plates, and thus
determine the capacitance by
𝜀0 𝐴
𝐶=
d
where 𝐶 is the proportionality constant or “capacitance” in the parallel-plate capacitor, 𝜀0
is the permittivity of space with a constant value of 8.85 × 10-12 F/m, 𝐴 is the area and d
is the distance of separation.
Example
Determine the amount of charge stored on either plate of a capacitor 4 µF when
connected across a 12-volt battery.
Solution:
Given:
𝐶 = 4 𝜇F → 4 × 10−6 F 𝑉 = 12 V
Working equation is
𝑄 = 𝐶𝑉
Substitute and we have
𝑄 = (4 × 10−6 F)(12 𝑉) = 4.8 × 10−7 C

Example
If the plate separation for a capacitor is 2.0 × 10-3 m, determine the area of the plates if
the capacitance is exactly 1 F.

Solution:
Given:
d = 2.0 × 10−3 m 𝐶 =1𝐹

Working equation is
𝜀0 𝐴
𝐶=
d
Isolate 𝐴 and we have
𝐶d
𝐴=
𝜀0
Substitute the values,
𝐶d (1 𝐹)(2.0 × 10−3 m)
𝐴= =
𝜀0 𝐹
8.85 × 10−12
m
𝐴 = 2.3 × 108 m2