ELECTRIC POTENTIAL AND ELECTRIC FIELD

When a free positive charge is accelerated by an electric field, it is given kinetic energy. The process is analogous to an object being
accelerated by a gravitational field. It is as if the charge is going down an electrical hill where its electric potential energy is converted to
kinetic energy. Let us explore the work done on a charge by the electric fieldin this process, so that we may develop a definition of electric
potential energy.
The electrostatic or Coulomb force is conservative, which means that the work done on charge q is independent of the path taken.
This is exactly analogous to the gravitational force in the absence of dissipative forces such as friction. When a force is conservative, it is
possible to define a potential energy associated with the force, and it is usually easier to deal with the potential energy (because it depends
only on position) than to calculate the work directly.
We use the letters PE to denote electric potential energy, which has units of joules (J). The change in potential energy, ΔPE , is
crucial, since the work done by a conservative force is the negative of the change in potential energy; that is,

W = - ΔPE

For example, work done to accelerate a positive charge from rest is positive and results from a loss in PE, or a negative ΔPE. There
must be a minus sign in front of ΔPE to make W positive. PE can be found at any point by taking one point as a reference and calculating the
work needed to move a charge to the other point.

Gravitational potential energy and electric potential energy are quite analogous. Potential energy accounts for work done by a
conservative force and gives added insight regarding energy and energy transformation without the necessity of dealing with the force
directly. It is much more common, for example, to use the concept of voltage (related to electric potential energy) than to deal with the
Coulomb force directly. Calculating the work directly is generally difficult, but we do know that, since F = qE, the work, and hence ΔPE, is
proportional to the test charge q. To have a physical quantity that is independent of test charge, we define
electric potential (or simply potential, since electric is understood) to be the potential energy per unit charge:

V = PE/q
 The potential difference between points A and B, VB-VA, is thus defined to be the change in potential energy of a charge moved from
A to B, divided by the charge. Units of potential difference are joules per coulomb, given the name volt (V) after Alessandro Volta.

expressed in volt, where

The familiar term voltage is the common name for potential difference. Keep in mind that whenever a voltage is quoted, it is
understood to be the potential difference between two points. For example, every battery has two terminals, and its voltage is the
potential difference between them. More fundamentally, the point you choose to be zero volts is arbitrary. This is analogous to the fact that
gravitational potential energy has an arbitrary zero, such as sea level or perhaps a lecture hall floor. In summary, the relationship between
potential difference (or voltage) and electrical potential energy is given by

Voltage is not the same as energy. Voltage is the energy per unit charge. Thus a motorcycle battery and a car battery can both have
the same voltage (more precisely, the same potential difference between battery terminals), yet one stores much more energy than the
other since . The car battery can move more charge than the motorcycle battery, although both are 12 V batteries.

Problems:

1. Suppose you have a 12.0 V motorcycle battery that can move 5000 C of charge, and a 12.0 V car battery that can move 60,000 C of
charge. How much energy does each deliver?

2. When a 12.0 V car battery runs a single 30.0 W headlight, how many electrons pass through it each second?
The Electron Volt
The energy per electron is very small in macroscopic situations like that in the previous example—a tiny fraction of a joule. But
on a submicroscopic scale, such energy per particle (electron, proton, or ion) can be of great importance. For example, even a tiny fraction
of a joule can be great enough for these particles to destroy organic molecules and harm living tissue. The particle may do its damage by
direct collision, or it may create harmful x rays, which can also inflict damage. It is useful to have an energy unit related to submicroscopic
effects. If an electron is accelerated between two charged metal plates as it might be in an old-model television tube or oscilloscope. The
electron is given kinetic energy that is later converted to another form—light in the television tube, for example. (Note that downhill for the
electron is uphill for a positive charge.) Since energy is related to voltage by ΔPE = qΔV, we can think of the joule as a coulomb-volt. On the
submicroscopic scale, it is more convenient to define an energy unit called the electron volt (eV), which is the energy given to a
fundamental charge accelerated through a potential difference of 1 V. In equation form,

An electron accelerated through a potential difference of 1 V is given an energy of 1 eV. It follows that an electron accelerated
through 50 V is given 50 eV. A potential difference of 100,000 V (100 kV) will give an electron an energy of 100,000 eV (100 keV), and so on.
Similarly, an ion with a double positive charge accelerated through 100 V will be given 200 eV of energy. These simple relationships
between accelerating voltage and particle charges make the electron volt a simple and convenient energy unit in such circumstances. The
electron volt is commonly employed in submicroscopic processes—chemical valence energies and molecular and nuclear binding energies
are among the quantities often expressed in electron volts.

Conservation of Energy
The total energy of a system is conserved if there is no net addition (or subtraction) of work or heat transfer. For conservative
forces, such as the electrostatic force, conservation of energy states that mechanical energy is a constant. Mechanical energy is the sum of
the kinetic energy and potential energy of a system; that is, KE + PE = constant. A loss of PE of a charged particle becomes an increase in its
KE. Here PE is the electric potential energy. Conservation of energy is stated in equation form as

or
where i and f stand for initial and final conditions. As we have found many times before, considering energy can give us insights
and facilitate problem solving.

Problem:
1. Calculate the final speed of a free electron accelerated from rest through a potential difference of 100 V.
Electric Potential in a Uniform Electric Field
The work done by the electric field to move a positive charge from A, the positive plate, higher potential, to B, the negative plate,
lower potential, is

The potential difference between points A and B is

Entering this into the expression for work yields

Work is W = FdcosѲ ; here cosѲ = 1, since the path is parallel to the field so Ѳ=0, and so W = Fd. Since F = qE, we see that W = qEd.
Substituting this expression for work into the previous equation gives

The charge q cancels out and therefore gives the final equation to solve for the voltage between two points in a uniform E.

where is the distance from A to B, or the distance between the plates. Note that the above equation implies the units for electric
field are volts per meter. We already know the units for electric field are newtons per coulomb; thus the following relation among units is
valid:
1 N/C = 1 V/m

Problem:
1. Dry air will support a maximum electric field strength of about × . Above that value, the field creates enough ionization in the air to make
the air a conductor. This allows a discharge or spark that reduces the field. What, then, is the maximum voltage between two parallel
conducting plates separated by 2.5 cm of dry air?
2. An electron gun has parallel plates separated by 4.00 cm and gives electrons 25.0 keV of energy. What is the electric field strength
between the plates? (b) What force would this field exert on a piece of plastic with a charge that gets between the plates?
Electrical Potential Due to a Point Charge
Point charges, such as electrons, are among the fundamental building blocks of matter. Furthermore, spherical charge distributions
(like on a metal sphere) create external electric fields exactly like a point charge. The electric potential due to a point charge is, thus, a case
we need to consider. The electric potential of a point charge is

where k is a constant equal to 9 X 109 Nm2/C2

Sample:
1. Voltage is produced by a small charge on a metal sphere. Charges in static electricity are typically in the nanocoulomb to microcoulomb
range. What is the voltage 5.00 cm away from the center of a 1-cm diameter metal sphere that has a -3.00 nC static charge?