Chapter 23

Electric Fields
23.1: Properties of Electric Charges
23.2: Charging Objects by Induction
23.3: Coulomb’s Law
23.4: The Electric Field
23.5: Electric Field of a Continuous Charge Distribution
23.6: Electric Field Lines
23.7: Motion of a Charged Particle in a Uniform Electric Field

1
23.1: Properties of Electric Charges

⚫ There are two kinds of electric charges

⚫ Negative (- ve) charges are the type possessed
by electrons
⚫ Positive (+ ve) charges are the type possessed by
protons
⚫ There are forces between electric charges:
Charges of the same sign repel one another
and charges with opposite signs attract one
another
2
Conservation of Electric Charges

⚫ A glass rod is rubbed with silk

⚫ Electrons are transferred from the glass
to the silk
⚫ Each electron adds a negative charge to
the silk
⚫ An equal positive charge is left on the
rod
⚫ Then: glass will have positive charge
and silk will have negative charge
⚫ This means that -q (silk) = q (glass)

Electric charge is always conserved in an isolated system:

Charge is not created in the process of rubbing two objects together.
The electrification is due to a transfer of charge from one object to another
3
 Another Example of charging

⚫ A rubber (or Teflon) rod is rubbed with wool

⚫ Electrons are transferred from the wool to the rubber

⚫ Each electron adds a negative charge to the rubber

⚫ An equal positive charge is left on the rod.

⚫ Then rubber will have negative charge and wool will have
positive charge

⚫ This means that -q (rubber) = q (wool)

4
 Charges (+) (-)
⚫ Using the convention suggested by Franklin, the electric
charge on the glass rod is called positive and that on the
rubber rod is called negative. Therefore, any charged object
attracted to a charged rubber rod (or repelled by a charged
glass rod) must have a positive charge, and any charged
object repelled by a charged rubber rod (or attracted to a

charged glass rod) must have a negative charge.

Charges of the same sign repel one another and
charges with opposite signs attract one another

⚫ The rubber rod is negatively ⚫ The rubber rod is negatively charged

charged ⚫ The second rubber rod is also
⚫ The glass rod is positively charged negatively charged
⚫ The two rods will attract ⚫ The two rods will repel

6
Quantization of Electric Charges

⚫ The electric charge, q, is said to be quantized

⚫ q is the standard symbol used for charge as a variable
⚫ Electric charge exists as discrete packets
⚫ q = Ne
⚫ N is an integer (N = 0, 1, 2, 3, ………)

⚫ e is the fundamental charge

⚫ |e| = 1.6 x 10-19 C (C, or Coulomb, is the unit of electrical

charge in the SI unit system)
⚫ Electron: qe = -e

⚫ Proton: qp= +e

How do the electrical charges move?

7
Conductors and Insulators
⚫ Electrical conductors are materials
in which some of the electrons are
free electrons
⚫ These electrons can move
relatively freely through the
material
⚫ Examples of good conductors:
copper, aluminum and silver
⚫ When a good conductor is charged
in a small region, the charge
readily distributes itself over the
entire surface of the material
⚫ The electrical properties of semiconductors are somewhere between those of
insulators and conductors
⚫ Examples of semiconductor materials include silicon and germanium
⚫ Electrical insulators are materials
in which all of the electrons are
bound to atoms
⚫ These electrons can not move
relatively freely through the
material
⚫ Examples of good insulators:
glass, rubber and wood
⚫ When a good insulator is charged
in a small region, the charge is
unable to move to other regions
of the material
8
 23.2 Charging by Induction
(conductors) conductor

⚫ Charging by induction
requires no contact Repel and attract
with the object inducing forces re-arrange
charges in
the charge.
sphere.
⚫ Instead we make use
of the forces between
Ground to remove
charges to obtain negative charge.
charged object.

Remove the
grounding wire.
The sphere is left
with an excess of
positive charge.
Can you charge an insulator by the same process?

9
23.3: Coulomb’s Law
(The Force Between Two Point Charges)
⚫ The electrical force between two stationary
point charges is given by Coulomb’s Law.
⚫ The magnitude of the force is proportional to
the product of the charges, q1 and q2; and
inversely proportional to the square of the
separation r between them.
⚫ The direction of the force is along the line 1736 – 1806 French physicist
joining the two points:
⚫ The force is attractive if the charges are of
opposite sign
⚫ The force is repulsive if the charges are of
like sign

⚫ The force is a conservative force

Coulomb’s torsion balance, used to establish the inverse
square law for the electric force between two charges. 10
Coulomb’s Law, Equation

⚫ Mathematically:

q1 q 2 q1q2
Fe = k e or F12 = k e 2 rˆ12
r2 r

⚫ The SI unit of charge is the coulomb (C)

⚫ ke is called the Coulomb constant

⚫ ke = 8.9876 x 109 N.m2/C2 = 1/(4π ε o)
⚫ εo is the permittivity of free space
⚫ ε o = 8.8542 x 10-12 C2 / N.m2

Similar to Newton’s Law of gravitational force between two point masses 11

Coulomb’s Law

12
Examples:

13
⚫ The force exerted by q1 on q3 is F13
⚫ The force exerted by q2 on q3 is F23
⚫ The resultant force exerted on q3 is
the vector sum of F13and F23

14
15
Solution:
Where is the resultant force equal to zero?
⚫ The magnitudes of the individual forces will be equal Directions will be opposite

18
19
You get:

20
23.4: The Electric Field.
⚫ The electric force acts through empty space, i.e., the effect is
produced even with no physical contact between objects.

⚫ An electric field helps to visualize this: the field is a set of

vectors, one vector associated with each point in space.

⚫ The electric field (E ) is produced in the region of space around a

charge (called the source charge).

⚫ The strength and direction of the electric field at a point in space

is measured by the electric force vector experienced by another
charge (often called the test charge) at that point.
Test charge
⚫ Mathematically:

Source charge
F
E
qo
21
The electric field, E , is a vector. The test charge, qo, is usually a very small
charge compared with the source charge, so that its existence does not
distort the electrical field generated by the source charge.
The unit of E is Newton/Coulomb ( N/C).

• Electric Field Lines

Electric field lines are a convenient way of visualizing the electric field.
Electric field lines:
1. Point in the direction of the field vector at every point (they point to the direction
of motion of the test charge if it is located at that point).
2. Start at positive charges or infinity
3. End at negative charges or infinity
4. Are more dense where the field is stronger

5. The tangent of an electric field line, at a given point, points in the direction
of the field at that point. Hence no lines can cross (why?). 22
The two charges have the same magnitude and opposite sign, so the
number of the electric field lines (the filed intensity) is the field direction is
opposite.

Electric field lines of one point positive

Electric field lines of one point negative
source charge in space
source charge in space

23
The charge on the right is twice the magnitude of the charge on the left (and
opposite in sign), so there are twice as many field lines, and the direction of
the field lines is different.

24
24
Combinations of charges:

The figures below show the electric field lines for different combinations of
electrical point charges:

Note that the lines are less dense where the field is weaker.

25
25
The electric field lines inside a parallel-plate capacitor
which consists of two conducting plates with equal and
opposite charges is shown (this electric field is called
uniform electric field).

26
How to calculate the electric field generated by a
point source charge q

⚫ From the definition:

F
E
qo
⚫ Place the test charge q0 at point P.
The force on q0 is given by
Coulomb’s law:
qqo
Fe = ke 2 rˆ
r
Fe q
⚫ Then, the electric field will be E= = ke 2 rˆ
qo r

• The electric field only depends on the source charge, not the test charge.

27
⚫ To calculate the electric field at a point P due to a group of
point charges, we first calculate the electric field vectors at P
individually using Equation 23.9 and then add them
vectorially. In other words, at any point P, the total electric
field due to a group of source charges equals the vector sum of
the electric fields of all the charges. This superposition
principle applied to fields follows directly from the vector
addition of electric forces. Therefore, the electric field at point
P due to a group of source charges can be expresse as the
vector sum

where ri is the distance from the ith source charge qi to the point P
and r^ i is a unit vector directed from qi toward P.
29
30
Electric field from a continuous charge
distribution

31
33
23.7: Motion of a charged particle in a uniform
electric field
⚫ From the definition of electric field: F
E
q
⚫ The electric force which the charged particle experience when
inserted inside an electric field is given by the relation:

Fe
Fe = q E = ma  a =
m
⚫ If the electric field is uniform then the electric force will be constant
and the acceleration of the particle due to this force will be constant
also.
⚫ There fore we can apply the laws of motion for a particle moving
with constant acceleration (see the physics I course) to this charged
particle. 36
The electric field lines inside a parallel-plate capacitor
which consists of two conducting plates with equal and
opposite charges is shown (this electric field is called
uniform electric field).

37
The laws of motion for a particle moving with constant
acceleration are:

Along the x-axis Along the y-axis

v xf = v xi + a x t v yf = v yi + a y t
1 1 2
x f = x i + v xi t + a x t 2
y f = yi + v yi t + a y t
2 2
( v xf ) = ( v xi ) + 2a x (x ) ( v yf ) = ( v yi ) + 2a y (x )
2 2 2 2

39
40
/Page 678

41