Electric fields
Posted in Physics, Charge and fieldThe strength of magnitude of an electric field is the force exerted on a charge in that field:
It is important to remember the E in this equation is the strength and not energy of the electric field.
The units of strength using this equation are
This can be rearranged to allow the force on a charge to be calculated:
Uniform fields
If an electric field is uniform, like that between two charged plates, the strength of the field can be calculated using an alternative equation:
Where is the potential difference and
is the space between the two plates:
Worked example
Calculate the strength of the electric field between two electrodes 1cm apart held at a potential difference of 250V
The value for V is 250 and d is 0.01m, this is then put into the equation to calculate the strength of the field: