1

E1 ELECTRIC FIELDS AND CHARGE

OBJECTIVES

Aims
In studying this chapter you should aim to understand the basic concepts of electric charge and
field and their connections. Most of the material provides illustrations which should help you to
acquire that understanding. To test whether you have understood the concepts see if you can
describe and explain the applications in your own words.
Minimum learning goals
When you have finished studying this chapter you should be able to do all of the following.
1. Explain, interpret and use the terms:
electric charge, coulomb, electron, electronic charge, conservation of charge, ion,
electrostatic force, permittivity, permittivity of free space, conduction, electric field, field
lines, field strength, uniform field, surface charge density, electrical shielding.
2. Describe a number of processes by which electric charges can be separated.
3. Describe the qualitative features of the interactions of static charges.
4. State and apply the relation between electric force and electric field.
5. Describe and explain examples of applications and hazards of electrostatic phenomena.
6. (a) Sketch electrostatic field-line diagrams for systems with simple conductor shapes
including parallel plates, concentric cylinders, isolated sphere, parallel cylinders.
(b) Interpret given field-line diagrams in terms of magnitude and direction of the field.
7. State and apply the relation between the surface change density and electric field at the
surface of a conductor.
8. Describe and discuss principles and examples of electrostatic shielding.
CONCEPT DIAGRAM

Electric charge

Separation of charges

Isolated charges Electric fields Forces between charges

Coulomb's law

Distribution of charges on Electric field lines

Fields and surface charges
surfaces of conductors

Electrostatic shielding
 E1: Electric Fields and Charge 2

PRE-LECTURE

1-1 INTRODUCTION
The natural world provides precious few clues to the ubiquity of electromagnetism. The
properties of rubbed amber and the magnetism of lodestone were little more than curiosities until
the 17th century. The elucidation of the nature of lightning and the recognition of light as
electromagnetic radiation were even more recent. Yet our world is governed by electromagnetic
interactions. All chemical bonds, the strength and weakness of materials, light, the influences that
form and control living things are all aspects of electromagnetism. Indeed, only three other types
of fundamental force are known: the weak force, the strong force and gravity.
Of these forces the first two, which are purely nuclear forces, are effective only over
distances of less than 10-12 m - that is smaller than an atom. They are associated with
radioactivity, but otherwise are of no consequence in chemistry and biology. Gravity is such a
feeble force that it matters only in interactions involving bodies of ‘astronomical’ mass and is
negligible in interactions between small things. Apart from the earth's gravitational pull, every
force that you experience is electromagnetic in nature.
Electromagnetic force is associated with a fundamental property of matter - electric charge.
No process is known which creates or destroys even the minutest amount of charge. This is
formally stated as the law of charge conservation: electric charge can not be created or
destroyed.
The SI unit of electric charge is the coulomb, symbol C. The magnitude of the charge on a
single electron is a commonly used quantity in atomic physics. It is
e  1.6  10-19 C.
Thus 1C  6.2  1018 e.
The charge on an electron is -e, and on a proton, +e.

LECTURE

1-2 ELECTRIC CHARGE

Why study electrostatics?
Electrostatics is the basis of industrial processes such as electrostatic spray painting, and
xerography, and of the unintentional build-up of electrostatic charge which can trigger explosions
and fires in, for example, grain silos and operating theatres.
We study electrostatic phenomena in this course not simply to understand the applications
of static charge, or the hazards they present, but because the ideas are applicable in other branches
of electricity, and the electrical aspects of other sciences. The theory of electrostatics, electric
charge, field and potential apply in more complex situations involving currents and magnetic
fields.
Isolated electric charges and atomic structure
Demonstration
Isolated electric charges, such as those obtained by running a comb through your hair, can be
detected with a field mill, an instrument which measures the charge induced on an internal
sensing electrode. A field mill shows that the positive charge on the comb is balanced by a
negative charge left behind on the hair.
Electrostatic phenomena are a consequence of the atomic nature of matter. All atoms are
built up from three types of fundamental particles, protons, neutrons, and electrons, the properties
of which are given in table 1.1. The nucleus of an atom consists of a number of protons and
neutrons tightly bound together and surrounded by a cloud of electrons. The number of
electrons in the
 E1: Electric Fields and Charge 3

electron cloud is equal to the number of protons in the nucleus. Since the charges of the proton
and electron are exactly equal in magnitude and opposite in sign, atoms are electrically neutral.
Atoms may gain or lose electrons, thus becoming ions.

Particle Mass Charge

Proton mp + e

Neutron 1.01 mp 0

Electron 1 - e
1840 mp

Table 1.1 The fundamental particles of atomic physics

Atoms combine to form molecules, which in turn combine to form bulk material. The
normal state of matter is electric neutrality: matter normally contains equal numbers of protons
and electrons, and has no net charge. Electrostatic effects occur when this exact balance of
positive and negative charges is disturbed, leaving a net charge of one sign on the body - i.e.
electrostatic effects occur when electrical charges are separated.
Separation of electric charges
Charge can be separated by various means. Here are some examples.
• Contact of dissimilar materials is followed by physical separation (combing hair).
• The belt of a Van de Graaff generator carries charge. Here also dissimilar materials (the belt
and the pulley) are contacted, and separated. Charge is drawn off the belt, and stored on the
dome.
• In a battery charge is separated by chemical means.
• Diffusion of charge occurs in living cells. Ions of one sign of charge can move more readily
through the permeable wall of a cell, than those of the other sign.
• Charge is separated by convection in thunderclouds.
All charge separation involves the expenditure of energy. The energy is released, for
example in a spark, when the charged particles recombine.
1-3 FORCES BETWEEN CHARGED BODIES
Energy must be supplied to separate unlike charges because there is an attractive electrostatic
force between the charges. This electrostatic force is one variety of the general electromagnetic
force. It is the basic interaction between charged bodies and it is called electrostatic because the
other varieties of electromagnetic force appear only when charges move.
Properties of the electrostatic force
Experiments show the following.
• Like charges repel. If you connect somebody to an electrostatic generator their hair will
stand up because each hair is carries the same sign of charge and the similar charges repel.
Likewise, two foam plastic balls fly apart when both are positively charged.
• Unlike charges attract. When opposite charges are transferred to foam plastic balls, the balls
are attracted towards each other.
• The magnitude of the electrostatic force between charges increases as their separation
decreases.
 E1: Electric Fields and Charge 4

Electrostatic force in atomic physics

The electrostatic force binds electrons and nuclei together to form atoms and the same force holds
atoms and molecules together in bulk material. The strength of materials is due entirely to electric
forces.
The electrostatic force is so potent that only minute deviations from charge equality can be
achieved in practice. For example when a 0.2 kg aluminium plate is charged negatively by
attaching it to a 250-volt battery, the charge on the plate is about -5 µC. To make up this huge
charge requires that only 1013 electrons, or 1 for every 1012 of all the 1025 electrons on the plate, be
added to the plate.
Electrostatic force in nuclear physics
The strong repulsive electrostatic force between the protons in the nucleus of an atom tends to
break up the nucleus, which is held together by the very strong attractive nuclear forces. The
collision of a neutron with a uranium-235 nucleus can break the nucleus into two lighter nuclei.
These fragments are no longer held together by the short-range nuclear force, but move rapidly
apart due to the repulsive electrostatic force between the protons in each nucleus. Thus the
release of energy in nuclear fission is mediated by electrostatic forces.
1-4 ELECTRIC FIELDS
Electric field is an idea introduced to describe electric forces. In the TV lecture the dome of a
charged Van de Graaff generator attracts charged droplets of water. This situation can be
described by saying that the charge on the dome of the generator sets up an intense electric field,
and the charged drops ‘feel’ a force when they are in the space occupied by that field.
A field is something that is defined at all points in a region of space. A familiar example is
the gravitational field of the earth, which is often called the acceleration due to gravity (g).
Another example is the velocity of water in a river which has different magnitudes and directions
at different places. Examples to be considered in this unit are electric field, electrostatic potential
and magnetic field. An electric field is said to exist at a point in space if a charged particle placed
at that point experiences a force that would not be felt by an uncharged particle. We have already
seen that a possible explanation for such a force could be the presence of another charged body -
but that is not the only thing that can create an electric field. Instead of describing the interaction
of charged particles directly in terms of forces it is more fruitful to use a new kind of description
involving electric fields. The two descriptions are visualised and compared in figure 1.1.

A charged object creates an electric field.

E
A charged object exerts
The field acts on another charged object
q
to produce a force.
a force on another charged object.
F = qE

Figure 1.1 The concept of electric field

The diagram on the left represents the description of an interaction in terms of forces. On the right we separate
the interaction into two parts.
 E1: Electric Fields and Charge 5

The value of an electric field E can be defined in terms of the force F experienced by a
particle with a small charge q:
F = qE................................................................(1.1)
Both F and E are vector quantities - they have both magnitude and direction.* In this definition
the magnitude of the force is equal to qE and the direction of the field is equal to the direction of
the force on a positively charged particle. The force on a negative particle is opposite to the field
direction. We say that an electric field is uniform when neither its magnitude nor its direction
changes from one point to another.
The SI unit of electric field is called the volt per metre (symbol V.m-1) which is equivalent to
a
newton per coulomb (N.C-1).
1-5 FIELD LINES
A neat way of mapping a two-dimensional slice through a magnetic field is to float some grass
seeds or some other kinds of small elongated objects on the surface of a liquid. The electric field
causes the seeds to align themselves with the field's direction. An equivalent way of visualising a
field in three-dimensions would be to imagine lots of tiny arrows, each one showing the direction
of the field at the chosen place. There is, however, another way of visualising electric fields (and
other vector fields) - field lines. Field lines are continuous directed lines drawn so that at any
point on a line the direction of the line (its tangent) shows the direction of the field. Field line
diagrams are also three-dimensional so it is not always possible to represent them accurately on flat
diagrams. Figures
1.2 and 1.4 are examples where we can draw a two-dimensional picture because they represent
situations which have the same configuration in all cross-sections.
Electrostatic field lines start on positively charged surfaces and end on negative charge
(figures 1.2, 1.4). If you have an ‘isolated’ charged body the field lines go out to ‘infinity’ as
though they are looking for the other sign of the separated charge (figure 1.8).

+ -

Figure 1.2 Field lines for two oppositely charged

parallel cylinders
Not only do field line diagrams represent the field direction in a visually obvious way; the
spacing of the lines also represents the magnitude of the field. The field is strongest where the
lines are closest together.

* In printed material vectors are indicated by bold-face symbols, such as E. In manuscript we usually put a tilde (~)

under the symbol (e.g. E ) or an arrow above it (e.g. E ). The magnitude of a vector is indicated by using the same
~
symbol without bold-face or by omitting the tilde or the arrow. Occasionally a component of a vector is indicated in
the same way as a magnitude; the context usually makes it clear which is meant.
 E1: Electric Fields and Charge 6

1-6 ELECTRIC FIELD AND CHARGE

Conductors with static charges
An electrical conductor is an object through which electrons or ions can move about relatively
freely. Metals make good conductors. If a net charge is placed on a conductor and it is then left
alone, the charge very quickly settles down to an equilibrium distribution. There are several
interesting things to note about that situation. (See figure 1.3.)
• The net charge is spread out over the surface of the conductor, but not uniformly.
• There is an electric field in the space around the conductor but not inside it.
• At points just outside the surface of the conductor, the electric field and the electric field
lines are perpendicular to the surface.

Figure 1.3 Electrostatic field near the surface of a conductor

The charge density varies over the surface. The field near the surface is strongest where the charge
density is highest.

Figure 1.4 Electric field between a positively charged cylinder

and a nearby plane surface.
We can describe the way that charge spreads out on the surface by specifying the
concentration of charge or surface charge density - the charge per surface area. The magnitude
(E) of the electric field at the surface of a conductor is proportional to the surface charge density
().
This relation is usually written as
E  

.
... (1.2)
The constant  is a property of the medium that surrounds the conductor, and is called the
permittivity of the medium. If the surrounding space is empty (a vacuum) we indicate that by
putting  = 0, and we call the constant 0 (pronounced ‘epsilon nought’) the permittivity of free
space. Although a vacuum is a pretty rare thing, the permittivity of air is very nearly equal to 0, so
in electrostatics we usually regard air as being equivalent to empty space.
 E1: Electric Fields and Charge 7

The SI unit of surface charge density is the coulomb per square metre (C.m-2). The SI unit
of permittivity is called the farad per metre, F.m-1 which, in terms of units that you know already,
is equivalent to C2.N-1.m-2. The permittivity of free space is one of the fundamental constants of
nature; its value is
 = 8.85  10-12 F.m-1.

Equation 1.2 (with  = ) is always true for conductors in a vacuum. It is a consequence of
Gauss's law, which is one of the four basic laws of electricity.
Field lines and electric field strength
Field line diagrams represent the strength of the field at each point provided that they are correctly
drawn. In a correctly drawn field-line diagram each line must begin (and end) on equal amounts
of charge. The field lines are also drawn so that the field strength is proportional to the
concentration of the lines (figure 1.5).
Think of a small imaginary surface, area
A, drawn perpendicular to the field at some
place in space. Count the number, n, of field
lines that go through the surface. Then the
magnitude of the electric field averaged
across the area A is represented by the number
of field lines per area.
n . ... (1.3)
E A
Thus, as the field lines spread out from a
charged body the electric field strength falls
off correspondingly. Figure 1.5 Field strength and
concentration of field lines

The product of the component of the average field perpendicular to the surface and the
surface area is called the flux of the field through the surface. So the number of field lines
through a surface represents the flux of the electric field through that surface.
In principle once a charge distribution is known the electric field can be deduced and vice
versa. In practice such calculations can usually be done only numerically (by computer) except
for simple geometries. Calculations of the relationship between electric field and charge
distribution are vital in many branches of science and technology. Examples range from the study
of ion diffusion in living cells, through the design of electrical equipment, to the investigation of
thunderstorms.
For highly symmetrical conductors accurate field-line diagrams are fairly easy to draw.
Some examples are given in figures 1.6, 1.7 and 1.8.

Figure 1.6 Field lines for parallel plates

The fringing field at the ends of the plates can be ignored if the plate area is large, or if the plates are
close together.
 E1: Electric Fields and Charge 8

- - ++
- - ++
- - +
+ + +
+
- ++ + - +
++
+ +
- + + - +
+ +
- + -
+ + + ++
- -
- -
- -

Figure 1.7 Coaxial cylinders Figure 1.8 Charged metal sphere

The field lines are radial. The field lines are radial in three dimensions. This
diagram shows a two-dimensional slice through
the
centre of the sphere.

1-7 ELECTROSTATICS IN INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE

Electrostatic spray painting
If a surface to be coated is charged, say negatively, then the corresponding electric field will be
directed inwards towards the surface. Positively charged droplets of paint from the sprayer are
then driven towards the surface by the forces that they experience in this electric field (or, if you
like, the positively charged droplets are attracted to the negatively charged surface).
Electrostatic precipitators
In electrostatic dust precipitators a large negative charge is maintained on spiral wire electrodes,
which are arranged between positively charged plates. Negative ions 2-, 2- etc.) are formed at the
(O N
wire and the exhaust gases pass between the wires and the plates. The negative ions collide with
the dust particles, giving them a negative charge. This negatively charged dust is then driven by
the electrostatic field to the positive plate, to which it adheres until collected. Electrostatic
precipitators are routinely used in coal-fired power stations; they remove over 95% of the light fly
ash from the exhaust gases.
Xerography
In a photocopier an image of the document is formed on a charged plate of selenium - a
photoconductive material. Light reflected from the white areas of the document discharges the
illuminated areas of the plate, leaving a charge-image of the document. Charged particles of black
printing ink are then attracted to the charged image. Finally, the ink is transferred by direct
contact to the sheet of oppositely charged copy paper.
1-8 ELECTRICAL SHIELDING
Michael Faraday discovered that inside a closed metal room no electrical effects from outside
influences could be detected, no matter how violent the electrical activities outside. As he put it:
‘I went into the cube and lived in it, and using lighted candles, electrometers, and all other tests of
electrical states, I could not find the least influence upon them ... though all the time the outside of
the cube was powerfully charged, and large sparks and brushes were darting off from every part of its
surface.’
[From M. Faraday (1849), Experimental Researches in Electricity para. 1174.]

Demonstration
Faraday's demonstration is repeated in the TV lecture where one lecturer stands inside a wire
mesh cage. A potential difference of 40 kV is established between plates on each side of the
 E1: Electric Fields and Charge 9

cage; the cage rises to a voltage of about 20 kV. Despite the intense electric fields that exist
outside the cage, the lecturer is quite safe inside the cage. Indeed, no electric field can be
detected inside.
When a hollow conductor is placed in an electric field, charge is redistributed very rapidly
over the surface so that the field lines end on surface charges (figure 1.9).

 +
 ++

 +
 +
 +
 +
 +
 +

Figure 1.9 Surface charges on a hollow conductor in an electric field

There is no field within the conducting walls, and hence there is no field inside the hollow
space. Of course charge, inside the hollow conductor, can be separated to give an electric field
inside the conductor. The point is that no external electric field can influence the electrical
conditions inside the conductor. The inside of the conductor is shielded from outside influences.
In practice shielding is never absolutely effective, but it can reach 99.99% effectiveness even with
mesh rather than continuous metal. Attention must be paid to the integrity of joins, to doors and to
the entry of cables. In the TV lecture, it is shown that the field inside the cage, as measured by the
field mill, is hundreds of times less inside the cage than outside. Note that a battery operated field
mill was used to avoid the problems of bringing in power leads while maintaining complete
shielding.
For successful shielding of experimental apparatus, the whole apparatus including signal
and power leads, must all be totally within the same shielded space. Provided that the shield
encloses the entire experiment it may be any shape. A mesh shield will also protect apparatus
from changing fields of electromagnetic radiation, as long as the mesh size is very much smaller
than the wavelength of the radiation. In the TV lecture, it is demonstrated that the mesh cage
effectively screens broadcast band radio signals (about 300 m wavelength), but not light (500 nm).
A screened room is a normal feature of any electrophysiology laboratory, where tiny
voltages are measured. In other situations screening may be necessary because the external fields
are so strong. In plasma physics experiments, for example, huge electrical energy is used to form
the plasma so the apparatus which makes sensitive measurements of the electrical properties of
the plasma must be thoroughly shielded.

Correctly screened Incorrectly screened

Figure 1.10 Screening an experiment
If the screen is in two or more disconnected parts, it is ineffective.
 E1: Electric Fields and Charge 10

POST-LECTURE

1-9 THE FUNDAMENTAL LAWS OF ELECTROSTATICS

Traditional courses on electrostatics start with the inverse square law for the force between two point
charges q and q , Coulomb's law:
 
1 q q
F =
4π 2......................................................................... (1.4)
r
where r is the distance between the charges, and the force acts along a line joining the charges.
The corresponding expression which gives the magnitude of the radial electric field of a
point charge, q, (or of a uniformly charged sphere) is
1 q
E = 4π 2............................................................................ (1.5)
 r
where r is the distance from the charge (or the centre of the sphere) and the electric field is in a
radial direction.
While this law is of fundamental importance in physics, it is not used in this form either in
the later development of electromagnetism, or in the life sciences. Consequently we have based
this course on a much more useful law which is equivalent to Coulomb's law: Gauss's law.
Although we have not formally stated Gauss's law (it is rather abstract mathematically) we have
used two aspects of it.
i) The field near a conducting surface is proportional to the surface charge density (eqn 1.2).
ii) At any place the electric field strength is proportional to the areal density of field lines (eqn
1.3).
Field Lines and Gauss's law
Like many very basic physical laws, Gauss's law appears in many guises, which may be very
mathematical. The formal statement of Gauss's law is: ‘The total flux of electric field through any
simple connected closed surface is equal to the total charge enclosed by that surface, divided by
.’
(Flux is a product of field strength and area of an imaginary surface drawn perpendicular to the
field.)
We can also express Gauss's law in terms of field lines: ‘The total number of field lines
passing outward through any closed surface is proportional to the total charge enclosed within the
surface.’ This statement implies that field lines originate on charges. Field lines passing out of
the surface add to the number of lines; those passing into the surface subtract from the number of
lines. Superposition
We have assumed, correctly, that electric fields are additive. Physical quantities which behave
additively, like fields, are said to obey the principle of superposition. This is not a trivial
statement because there are some quantities, such as intensity of coherent waves and the effects of
drug dosages, which do not behave additively. Physical quantities which do obey the
superposition principle include force, mass, energy, electric field, magnetic field and electrostatic
potential.
Electric dipoles
A pair of oppositely charged particles is often called a dipole. The electric field produced by a
dipole is like that shown in figure 1.2. One way of describing the properties of a dipole is to
specify its dipole moment, which is defined as the product of the magnitude of the charge and the
separation between the particles: p = qd.
E1: Electric Fields and Charge 11