Electric fields

Posted in Physics, Charge and field

The strength of magnitude of an electric field is the force exerted on a charge in that field:

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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 Dynamic image 1

This can be rearranged to allow the force on a charge to be calculated:

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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:

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Where Dynamic image 4 is the potential difference and Dynamic image 5 is the space between the two plates:

Uniform field

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:

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