Module 2: Electrostatics

Lecture 9: Electrostatic Potential

Objectives
In this lecture you will learn the following
Electric Dipole and field due to a dipole
Torque on a dipole in an inhomogeneous electric field
Potential Energy of a dipole
Energy of a system of charges - discrete and continuous




Potential and Field due to an Electric Dipole
An electric dipole consists of two equal and opposite charges and separated by a small
distance .
The Electric Dipole Moment is defined as a vector of magnitude with a direction from the
negative charge to the positive charge. In many molecules, though the net charge is zero, the
nature of chemical bonds is such that the positive and negative charges do not cancel at every
point. There is a small separation between the positive charge centres and negative charge
centres. Such molecules are said to be polar molecules as they have a non-zero dipole moment.
The figure below shows an asymmetric molecule like water which has a dipole moment
C-m.

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In the polar coordinates shown in the figure

where and are unit vectors in the radial and tangential directions, taken respectively, in the
direction of increasing and increasing . The electric potential at a point P with a position
vector is


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If the distance is small compared to (i.e., if the point P is far away from the dipole), we
may use

where is the angle between and the dipole moment vector . This gives


Electric Field of a Dipole

A. CARTESIAN COORDINATES It is convenient to define the Cartesian axes in the
following way. Let the dipole moment vector be taken along the z-axis and position vector of
P in the y-z plane (We have denoted the point where the electric field is calculated by the letter P
and the electric dipole moment vector as ). We then have with
. Thus

Since is independent of , . The y and z components are


and


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B. POLAR COORDINATES In polar ( ) coordinates, the radial and tangential
components of the field are as follows:

GENERAL EXPRESSION A representation independent form for the dipole field can be
obtained from the above, We have

Using , we get

This form does not depend on any particular coordinate system. Note that, at large distances,
the dipole field decreases with distance as where as monopole field (i.e. field due to a point
charge) decreases as .

Dipole in a uniform Electric Field The net force on the dipole is zero. There is a net torque
acting on the dipole. If is the length of the dipole, the torque is




Expressing in vector form,
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If or , (i.e. when the dipole is aligned parallel or antiparallel to the field) the
torque vanishes and the dipole is in equilibrium. The equilibrium is stable if and
unstable if

Example 16: The net electric force on a dipole is zero only if the field is uniform. In a non-uniform field,
the dipole experiences a net force. Consider a dipole consisting of charges separated by a distance
in an electric field , where and are constants. Determine the net force on the
dipole when the dipole is aligned (a) parallel and (b) anti-parallel to the field.


Solution: Consider the dipole shown above, where the charges are separated by a distance ,
so that the dipole moment is . Let the field at the charge be and that at be
. The force on the charge is and on is . There is a net
force to the right (z-direction). We can write the force as

Where the last equality is valid for an ideal dipole for which .
In our case and

so that the net force is .

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Work done in turning a dipole from equilibrium
If the dipole is twisted by an angle from its stable equilibrium position, work has to be done by
the external agency

This work becomes the potential energy of the dipole in this position.
Energy of a Dipole
To calculate energy of a dipole oriented at an angle in the electric field, we have to add to the
work done above, the energy of the dipole in the equilibrium position. This is equal to the work
done in bringing the dipole from infinity to the equilibrium position. The dipole may be aligned
in the direction of the field at infinity without any cost of energy. We may now displace the
dipole parallel to the field to bring to the equilibrium position. As the negative charge is
displaced along the field by an additional distance , the work done is ,
which is the potential energy of the dipole in equilibrium.
The potential energy of the dipole at position is

The energy is positive if is acute and is negative if is obtuse.

Potential Energy of a System of Charges Assume all charges to be initially at infinity. We
assemble the charges by bringing the charges one by one and fix them in their positions. There is
no energy cost in bringing the first charge and putting it at P , as there is no force field. Thus
.
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We now bring the second charge and take it to point P . Since this charge moves in the
potential field of the first charge, the work done in bringing this charge is

where is the potential at P due to the charge at P . The third charge is to be
brought to P under the force exerted by bth and and is

and so on. The work done in assembling charges , located respectively at
is


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The extra factor of in the last expression is to ensure that each pair is counted only
once. The sum excludes the terms . Since the potential at the - th position due to all other
charges is

we get


Energy of a continuous charge distribution If is the density of charge distribution at
, we can generalize the above result


(In case of a line charge or a surface charge distribution, the integration is over the appropriate
dimension).
Since the integral is over the charge distribution, it may be extended over all space by defining
the charge density to be zero outside the distribution, so that the contribution to the integral
comes only from the region of space where the charge density is non-zero. Writing

From the differential form of Gauss's law, we have

With this


On using the vector identity

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we get, using ,
The first integral can be converted to a surface integral by using divergence theorem and the
surface can be taken at infinite distances, where the electric field is zero. As a result the first
integral vanishes and we have






Lecture 10: Poisson Equations
Objectives
In this lecture you will learn the following
Poisson's equation and its formal solution
Equipotential surface
Capacitors - calculation of capacitance for parallel plate, spherical and cylindrical capacitors
Work done in charging a capacitor

Poisson Equation

Differential form of Gauss's law,

Using ,

so that

This is Poisson equation. In cartesian form,
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A formal solution to Poisson equation can be written down by using the property Dirac -
function discussed earlier. It can be seen that


Operating with operator on both sides (The subscript indicates that here is to be taken
with respect to variable )

We had shown that

substituting which the expression follows.
Equipotential surface
Equipotential surfaces are defined as surfaces over which the potential is constant

At each point on the surface, the electric field is perpendicular to the surface since the electric
field, being the gradient of potential, does not have component along a surface of constant
potential.
We have seen that any charge on a conductor must reside on its surface. These charges
would move along the surface if there were a tangential component of the electric field.
The electric field must therefore be along the normal to the surface of a conductor. The
conductor surface is, therefore, an equipotential surface.
Electric field lines are perpendicular to equipotential surfaces (or curves) and point in the
direction from higher potential to lower potential.
In the region where the electric field is strong, the equipotentials are closely packed as the
gradient is large.

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The electric field strength at the point P may be found by finding the slope of the potential at
the point P. If is the distance between two equipotential curves close to P,

where is the difference between the two equipotential curves near P.

Example 17:
Determine the equipotential surface for a point charge.
Solution:
Let the point charge be located at the origin. The equation to the equipotential surface is given
by


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Thus the surfaces are concentric spheres with the origin (the location of the charge) as the
centre and radii given by


The equipotential surfaces of an electric dipole is shown below.


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Example 18:
Determine the equipotential surface of an infinite line charge carrying a positive charge density
.
Solution:
Let the line charge be along the z- axis. The potential due to a line charge at a point P is given by

where is the distance of the point P from the line charge. Since the line charge along the z-
axis, so that


The surface is given by


i.e.

which represent cylinders with axis along the z-axis with radii


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As increases, radius becomes smaller. Thus the cylinders are packed closer around the
axis, showing that the field is stronger near the axis.

Capacitance
Consider a spherical conductor of radius carrying a charge . The potential of the sphere is
given by

The potential of the conductor is proportional to the charge it contains. This linear relationship is
true in general, independent of the shape of the conductor,

The constant of proportionality is called the capacitance of the conductor. For the conducting
sphere the capacitance is .
Unit of capacitance: The M.K.S. unit of capacitance is Coulomb/Volt which is called a
Farad. However, one Farad turns out to be very large capacitance (the capacitance of the Earth is
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approximately 700 micro-Farad). A more practical unit of capacitance is a micro-Farad ( )
or a pico- Farad (pF):



Capacitor: A capacitor is essentially a device consisting of an arrangement of conductors for
storing charges. As a consequence, it also stores electrostatic energy. The simplest capacitor
consists of two conductors, one carrying a charge and the other a charge . Let be the
potential of the first conductor and that of the second. Since the conductor is an equipotential
surface, the potential difference between the conductors is also constant, and is given
by

where the line integral is carried out along any path joining the two conductors. The electric
field is proportional to the charge since if the charge on each conductor is multiplied by a
constant , the charge density and hence the electric field also gets multiplied by the same
factor. Thus is proportional to the potential difference

where is the capacitance of the conductor pair. A capacitor consisting of a single conductor
(like the spherical conductor described above) may be considered to be one part of a conductor
pair where the second conductor containing the opposite charge is at infinity.

Parallel Plate Capacitor: A parallel plate capacitor consists of two parallel metal plates, each of
area separated by a distance . A potential difference is maintained between the two
plates. If the charge on the positive plate is and that on the negative plate is , the
electric field in the region between the two plates is .

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The potential difference between the plates is

The capacitance is


Spherical Capacitor: The spherical capacitor consists of two concentric spherical conducting
shells of radii and .



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The electric field at a distance from the centre is calculated by using the Gaussian surface
shown. The fileld is radial and is given by

The voltage drop between the shells is obtained by integrating the electric field along a radial
path (the electric field being conservative, the path of integration is chosen as per our
convenience) from the negative plate to the positrive plate.

The capacitance is



Cylindrical Conductor: A cylindrical capacitor consists of two long coaxial conducting
cylinders of length and radii and . The electric field in the space between the
cylinders may be calculated by Gauss Law, using a pillbox in the shape of a short coaxial
cylinder of length and radius . Neglecting edge effects, the field is in the radial
direction and depends only on the distance from the axis.


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The contribution to the flux from the end caps of the pillbox is zero as the field is along the
surface. The field at a distance is given by


where is the charged enclosed by the pillbox, which is given in terms of the surface charge
density on the inner cylinder by

The field at a distance is given by

The potential difference between the cylindrical conductors is

Substituting


the capacitance is given by
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Work Done in Charging a Capacitor: Consider a parallel plate capacitor. The process of
charging a capacitor consists of removing negative charges (electrons) from the positive plate
and depositing them on the negative plate.
Suppose at a particular instant, the charge on the plates is , so that the potential difference
between the plates is . To transport an infinitisimal charge from the positive plate to the
negative plate, the work done by an external agency is

Total work done in charging the plates from to is

In terms of potential difference ,



This is the amount of energy stored in the capacitor.
One can also get the same expression by using the expression for the energy of a charge
distribution derived earlier

For a parallel plate capacitor within the volume of the capacitor and zero
outside. Hence


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Lecture 11: Capacitance
Objectives
In this lecture you will learn the following
Capacitors in series and in parallel
Properties of dielectric
Conductor and dielectric in an electric field.
Polarization and bound charges
Gauss's Law for dielectrics

Capacitors in Combination: Capacitors can be combined in series or parallel combinations in
a circuit.

Parallel Combination When they are in parallel, the potential difference across each capacitor
is the same.




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The charge on each capacitor is obtained by multiplying with the capacitance, i.e.
. Since total charge in the capacitors is sum of all the charges,
the effective capacitance of the combination is

Series Combination:
When capacitors are joined end to end in series, the first capacitor gets charged and induces an
equal charge on the second capacitor which is connected to it. This in turn induces an equal
charge on the third capacitor, and so on.

The net potential difference between the positive plate of the first capacitor and the negative
plate of the last capacitor in series is



The individual voltage drops are

so that
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The effective capacitance is, therefore, given by


Example 19:
Calculate the voltage across the 5 F capacitor in the following circuit.

Solution:
The equivalent circuit is shown above. The two 10 capacitors in series is equivalent to a 5
capacitor.5 in parallel with this equivalent capacitor gives 10 as the next
equivalent. The circuit therefore consists of a 10 in series with the 20 capacitor. Since
charge remains constant in a series combination, the potential drop across the 10 capacitor
is twice as much as that across 20 capacitor. The voltage drop across the 10 (and
hence across the given 5 ) is V.


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Conductors and Dielectric A conductor is characterized by existence of free electrons. These
are electrons in the outermost shells of atoms (the valence electrons) which get detatched from
the parent atoms during the formation of metallic bonds and move freely in the entire medium in
such way that the conductor becomes an equipotential volume.
In contrast, in dielectrics (insulators), the outer electrons remain bound to the atoms or molecules
to which they belong. Both conductors and dielectric, on the whole, are charge neutral. However,
in case of dielectrics, the charge neutrality is satisfied over much smaller regions (e.g. at
molecular level).

Polar and non-polar molecules:
A dielectric consists of molecules which remain locally charge neutral. The molecules may be
polar or non-polar. In non-polar molecules, the charge centers of positive and negative charges
coincide so that the net dipole moment of each molecule is zero. Carbon dioxide molecule is an
example of a non-polar molecule.
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In a polar molecules, the arrangement of atoms is such that the molecule has a permanent dipole
moment because of charge separation. Water molecule is an example of a polar molecule.
When a non-polar molecule is put in an electric field, the electric forces cause a small separation
of the charges. The molecule thereby acquires an induced dipole moment.
A polar molecule, which has a dipole moment in the absence of the electric field, gets its dipole
moment aligned in the direction of the field. In addition, the magnitude of the dipole moment
may also increase because of increased separation of the charges.

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Conductor in an Electric Field
Consider what happens when a conductor is placed in an electric field, say, between the plates of
a parallel plate capacitor.
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As the conductor contains free charges (electrons), these move towards the positive plate,
making the surface of the conductor closer to the positive plate of the capacitor negatively
charged. These are called induced charges. Consequently, the surface of the conductor at the end
closer to the negative plate is positively charged. The motion of charges continue till the internal
electric field created by induced charges cancel the external field, thereby making the field inside
the conductor zero.

Dielectric in an Electric Field
A dielectric consists of molecules which may (polar) or may not (non-polar) have permanent
dipole moment. Even in the former case, the dipoles in a dielectric are randomly oriented
because dipole energies are at best comparable to thermal energy.

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When a dielectric is placed in an electric field the dipoles get partially aligned in the direction of
the field. The charge separation is opposed by a restoring force due to attaraction between the
charges until the forces are balanced. Since the dipoles are partially aligned, there is a net dipole
moment of the dielectric which opposes the electric field. However, unlike in the case of the
conductors, the net field is not zero. The opposing dipolar field reduces the electric field inside
the dielectric.

Dielectric Polarization
Electric polarization is defined as the dipole moment per unit volume in a dielectric medium.
Since the distribution of dipole moment in the medium is not uniform, the polarization is a
function of position. If is the sum of the dipole moment vectors in a volume element
located at the position ,

It can be checked that the dimension of is same as that of electric field divided by permittivity
. Thus the source of polarization field is also electric charge, except that the charges involved
in producing polarization are bound charges.
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Potential due to a dielectric

Consider the dielectric to be built up of volume elements . The dipole moment of the volume
element is the potential at a point S, whose position vector with respect to the volume
element is is




The potential due to the whole volume is

where, we have used

Use the vector identity

Substituting and ,

we get


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The first integral can be converted to a surface integral using the divergence theorem giving,


The first term is the potential that one would expect for a surface charge density where

where is the unit vector along outward normal to the surface. The second term is the
potential due to a volume charge density given by

The potential due to the dielectric is, therefore, given by

and the electric field

Gauss's Law in a Dielectric: We have seen that the effect of polarization of a dielectric is to
produce bound charges of volume density and surface density , given by

The total electric field of a system which includes dielectrics is due to these polarization charge
densities and other charges which may be present in the system. The latter are denoted as free
charges to distinguish them from charges attributable to polarization effect. For instance, the
valence charges in a metal or charges of ions embedded in a dielectric are considered as free
charges. The total charge density of a medium is a sum of free and bound charges

We can now formulate Gauss's law in the presence of a dielectric. Gauss's Law takes the form

Substituting , we get

The electric displacement vector is defined by

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which has the same dimension as that of The equation satisfied by is thus,

which is the differential form of Gauss's law for a dielectric medium.
Integrating over the dielectric volume,

where is the free charge enclosed in the volume. The volume integral can be converted to
a surface integral using the divergence theorem, which gives

Thus the flux over the vector over a closed surface is equal to the free charged enclosed by
the surface. The above formulatons of Gauss's law for dielectric medium is useful because they
refer to only free charges for which we may have prior knowledge.

Constitutive Relation

Electric displacement vector helps us to calculate fields in the presence of a dielectric. This is
possible only if a relationship between and is known. For a weak to moderate field
strength, the electric polarization is found to be directly proportional to the external electric
field . We define Electric Susceptibility through

so that

where is called the relative permittivity or the dielectric constant and is
the permittivity of the medium. Using differential form of Gauss's law for , we get


Thus the electric field produced in the medium has the same form as that in free space, except
that the field strength is reduced by a factor equal to the dielectric constant .

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Lecture 12: Conductors and Dielectric
Objectives
In this lecture you will learn the following
Properties of capacitors filled with dielectric
Force on a dielectric
Calculation of effective capacitance for capacitor filled with different dielectrics

Capacitance filled with Dielectric If a material of dielectric constant is inserted between
the plates of a capacitor, the field is reduced by a factor . The potential between the plates
also reduces by the same factor .

Thus the capacitance

increases by a factor .


Example 20:
A parallel plate capacitor with plate separation 3.54mm and area 2m is initially charged to a
potential difference of 1000 volts. The charging batteries are then disconnected. A dielectric
sheet with the same thickness as that of the separation between the plates and having a dielectric
constant of 2 is then inserted between the capacitor plates. Determine (a) the capacitance, (b)
potential difference across the capacitor plates, (c) surface charge density (d) the electric field
and (e) displacement vector, before and after the insertion of the dielectric.
Solution:
(a) The capacitance before insertion of the dielectric is

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After the insertion the capacitance doubles and becomes F.
(b) Potential difference between the plates before insertion is given to be 1000 V. On introducing
the dielectric it becomes half, i.e. 500 V.
(c) The charge on each capacitor plate was coulomb, giving a surface
charge density of C/m . The free charge density remains the same on introduction
of the dielectric.
(d) The electric field strength is given by

The electric field strength is reduced to volt/meter on insertion.
(e) The displacement vector remains the same in both cases as the free charge density is not
altered. It is given by C/m .


Example 21 : The parallel plates of a capacitor of plate dimensions and separation
are charged to a potential difference and battery is disconnected. A dielectric slab of
relative permittivity is inserted between the plates of the parallel plate capacitor such that the
left hand edge of the slab is at a distance from the left most edge of the capacitor. Calculate (a)
the capacitance and (b) the force on the dielectric.
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Solution: Since the battery is disconnected, the potential difference between the plates will
change while the charge remains the same. Since the capacitance of the part of the capacitor
occupied by the dielectric is increased by a factor , the effective capacitance is due to two
capacitances in parallel,

The energy stored in the capacitor is

Let be the force we need to apply in the x-direction to keep the dielectric in place. For an
infinitisimal increment of , we have to do an amount of work of work, which will
increase the energy stored in the field by , so that


the differentiation is to be done, keeping the charge constant. Thus

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Since , is positive. This means the electric field pulls the dielectric inward so that an
external agency has to apply an outward force to keep the dielectric in position. Since the initial
potential difference is given by , one can express the force in terms of this potential

This is the force that the external agency has to apply to keep the left edge of the dielectric at .
The force with which the capacitor pulls the dielectric in has the same magnitude.

Example 22: In the above example, what would be the force if the battery remained connected
?
Solution : If the battery remained connected does not remain the same, the potential
does. The battery must do work to keep the potential constant. It may be realised that the force
exerted on the dielectric in a particular position depends on the charge distribution (of both free
and bound charges) existing in that position and the force is independent of whether the battery
stays connected or is disconnected. However, in order to calculate the force with battery
remaining connected, one must, explicitly take into account the work done by the battery in
computing the total energy of the system. The total energy now has two parts, one the work
done by the external agency and the other the work done by the battery, viz., where
is the extra charge supplied by the battery to keep the potential constant. Thus

which gives


Since is constant, we have

Using these
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(Note that if the work done by the battery were neglected, the direction of will be wrong,
though, because we have used linear dielectrics, the magnitude, accidentally, turns out to be
correct !)
In the previous example, we have seen that

giving

which is negative. Thus is positive, as before,


Exercise A parallel plate capacitor of plate area and separation , contains a dielectric of
thickness and of dielectric constant 2, resting on the negatve plate.

A potential difference of is maintained between the plates. Calculate the electric field in the
region between the plates and the density of bound charges on the surface of the dielectric.
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[Ans. field in empty region , within dielectric , bound charge density
]

The permittivity of a medium filling the space between the plates of a spherical capacitor with
raddi and ( ) is given by

Find the capacitance of the capacitor, distribution of surface bound charges and the total bound
charges in the dielectric. [Ans. , bound charges on
dielectric surface with radii and are respectively and
]



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