MODULE 3 - LESSON 1

Conductors and
Capacitors
Methods of Electrostatic Charging
In this LESSON:
• Electrostatic Equilibrium
• Electric Potential of Conductors
• Capacitors
• Parallel-Plate Capacitors
 Electrostatic Equilibrium
Conductor - permits free electrons, also called conduction electrons ,
to freely move between and among atoms.

Electrostatic Equilibrium - 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.
Characteristics
• The first characteristic of conducting materials at electrostatic
equilibrium is that the field and the conductor’s surface are directed
perpendicular to each other.

• Spherical - the perpendicular field vectors are aligned with the sphere’s
center.
• Irregular - the field vector will be perpendicular to any line tangential to the
surface.
Characteristics
• Figure 1 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.
Characteristics
• Under electrostatic equilibrium, the charges are distributed such that
no electric field is present inside the conducting material.
• 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.
Electric Potential of Conductors
• 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:

• 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.
Electric Potential of Conductors
• 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.
SAMPLE PROBLEM
 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).
 Capacitors
• 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):

C = Capacitance (determines how much of a charge difference the capacitor holds when a certain voltage
is applied.). Expressed in Farads (F = 1 C/V)
Q = Total charge - Coulombs (C)
V = Voltage – Volts (V)
 Parallel-Plate Capacitors
• In the case of parallel-plate capacitors, the magnitude of the electric field is
determined using Gauss’s law, Therefore,

• Since the v alue of capacitance is determined according to the shape of the

capacitor, it is always directly proportional to the area of the conducting plate
and inv ersely proportional to the separation distance between two conducting
plates. We can assign a Gaussian surface to enclose a positiv e charge q on
one of the plates, and thus determine the capacitance by

• 𝐶 is the proportionality constant or “capacitance” in the parallel-plate

capacitor
• 𝜀0 is the permittiv ity of space with a constant v alue of 8.85 × 10-12 F/m,
• 𝐴 is the area and d is the distance of separation.
SAMPLE PROBLEM
SAMPLE PROBLEM
 TRY THIS!
The parallel plates of a 1.0-F capacitor are 1.0 mm apart. What is their area?
 TRY THIS!
The plates of a parallel-plate capacitor in vacuum are 5.00 mm apart and in area 2.00 m 2. A 10.0-kV
potential difference is applied across the capacitor.
Compute
(a) the capacitance;
(b) the charge on each plate; and
(c) the magnitude of the electric field between the plates.
TRY THIS!
END OF PRESENTATION