Chapter 1 – Part 2

Prerequistes about
electromagnetism

Two centuries of physics in 11 slides …

This chapter is aimed towards reminders

and pre-requisites of electromagnetism
in vacuum and in media
Electrostatics in vaccum

A diluted medium which contains electrical charges is generally described by its charge density
which includes :

- isolated charges
- continuously spread volumetric or surface charges

® Coulomb  electric field lines are in a

continuous loop
(conservative field)
electric field
potential

volumetric
® Gauss or div charge density

charge inside
the surface S 1st Maxwell’s equation

Electrical charges are the sources of the electric field

Electrocinetics

® Electrical charge conservation

current density

Þ It follows that the variation of the total electric charge inside a volume is only due to
the charges’flow through its outter surface

 Ohm (local)

 U = R.I (integral) conductivity

resistance
Magnetostatics

Electric charges in motion interact through:

- Lorentz force (isolated charges)
- Laplace force (currents) 2nd Maxwell’s equation

® Biot and Savart :  magnetic induction is an axial vector

 magnetic forces are neither attractive nor repulsive

 they induce deviations of the charges or of the currents’paths

® Ampere : or

3rd Maxwell’s equation

 with

Currents are the sources of the magnetic field free currents displacement current
(Maxwell)
General regime in vacuum = influence of on an electrical circuit

magnetic flow
® Lenz-Faraday :

conservative field
electromotive field due to motionless charges
due to currents


=0

Þ Maxwell-Faraday :

4th Maxwell’s equation

Electromagnetism in matter

- conducting media  free charges (e-, ions) and free charges currents (if externally applied )
 internal electric field equal to zero at the electrostatic equilibrium

- electric insulators or dielectric media

Þ bound charges (stay with atomic, molecular or crystalline groups)

Þ electric field penetrates the media and interacts with these charges
Þ small shifts in their positions

Þ Microscopic behaviour described by the electric dipole moment

with in neutral media

Þ full microscopic description by quantum physics

 qualitative classical description : each atom, molecule, crystal element, … could be seen as a dipole +Q/-Q

N P
-Q ⃗
𝐩 +Q
 « applied » local field
atomic polarisability (mesoscopic scale)
associated to P and N
displacements
orientation polarisability
associated to the orientation
electronic polarisability of a pre-existing
associated to the (case of polar molecules)
electronic cloud distortion Temperature dependance %
(Curie’s law)

The relation is linear but are not necessarily parallel because the effect of a is to mix the
elements of up together to give the elements of , such that :

Validity : local field << atomic field

polarisability tensor (see later) Order of magnitude

rank 2 (3x3 matrix representation in a 3D space) with q = 1,6 10-19 C and a=1Å
microscopic level macroscopic level

dipole moment  induced polarization

with
polarization charges density
macroscopic
dielectric susceptibility tensor electric field
rank 2

free charges density

 (Gauss theorem)

displacement vector « new » 1st Maxwell’s equation

or electrical induction
 

permittivity

relative permittivity
or dielectric constant
New constitutive equation
which describes the response of the medium
to the electrical excitation

1) is not only determined by the free charges, it inherently depends on ()

2) is a mathematical object, not a physical parameter

3) The relationship between [a] and [ce] is complex in most cases

4) The local relationship between and is linear and valid

if is weak enough and phenomena are enough slowly varying
(such that depends of at the same time)
Idem magnetic properties

 generalized Ampere’s theorem

with free charges current (conducting media)

displacement current polarization current
magnetization current (magnetic media)

magnetic field
Sum up : General regime in matter / Maxwell’s equations

Gauss ( )

Conservation of magnetic flow

Faraday

Ampere ( )

Constitutive equations with

with (magnetic media)

Here is the non linear optics subject !