Chapter 26
Current and Resistance
What is physics?
Practical
electromagnetic
devices
Capacitor Resistor Inductor
C R L
Electrostatics Current Magnetism
26-1 Electric Current
Equipotential!
No E-field!
Any isolated conducting loop—regardless of whether
it has an excess charge—is all at the same potential.
No electric field can exist within it or along its surface.
If we insert a battery in the loop, the conducting loop
is no longer at a single potential. Electric fields act
inside the material making up the loop, exerting
forces on internal charges, causing them to move and
thus establishing a (steady-state) current.
A section of a conductor, part of a conducting loop in
which current has been established. If charge dq
passes through a hypothetical plane (such as aa’) in
time dt, then the current i through that plane is
defined as
*1 ampere (A) = 1 Coulomb/sec (C/s)
26-1 Electric Current
A conductor with current i0 splits at a junction into
two branches. Because charge is conserved, the
magnitudes of the currents in the branches must
add to yield the magnitude of the current in the
original conductor, so that
Bending or reorienting the wires in space does not
change the validity of the above equation. Current
arrows show only a direction (or sense) of flow
along a conductor, not a direction in space.
*Electrons are the charged particles that actually move.
26-2 Current Density
Current i (a scalar quantity) is related to current density J (a vector
quantity) by
where dA is a vector perpendicular to a surface element of area dA and
the integral is taken over any surface cutting across the conductor. The
current density J has the same direction as the velocity of the moving
charges if they are positive charges and the opposite direction if the
moving charges are negative.
For a current uniform and parallel to dA,
Streamlines representing current density in the
flow of charge through a constricted conductor.
26-2 Current Density
Drift Speed
Current is said to be due to positive charges that are propelled by the
electric field. In the figure, positive charge carriers drift at speed vd in
the direction of the applied electric field E which here is applied to the
left. By convention, the direction of the current density J and the sense
of the current arrow are drawn in that same direction, as is the drift
speed vd.
E = 0: electrons move randomly at v ~ 106 m/s, resulting in i = 0.
E 0: electrons slowly drift along the E (vd ~ 10-7 m/s), resulting in i 0.
26-2 Current Density
Drift Speed
The drift velocity vd is related to the current density by
Here the product ne, whose SI unit is the coulomb per cubic meter
(C/m3), is the carrier charge density.
;
26-3 Resistance and Resistivity
If we apply the same potential difference between the ends of
geometrically similar rods of copper and of glass, very different currents
result. The characteristic of the conductor that enters here is its electrical
resistance. The resistance R of a conductor is defined as
*1 ohm = 1 Ω = 1 V/A
where V is the potential difference across the conductor and i is the
current through the conductor. Instead of the resistance R of an object, we
may deal with the resistivity ρ of the material:
*ohm-meter = Ω∙m = (V/A) ∙m
The reciprocal of resistivity is conductivity σ of the material:
* (Ω∙m)-1
26-3 Resistance and Resistivity
The resistance R of a conducting wire of length L
and uniform cross-sectional area A is
𝑉 𝑖
𝐸= ; 𝐽=
𝐿 𝐴
𝐸 𝑉/𝐿
𝜌= = A potential difference V is
𝐽 𝑖/𝐴
applied between the ends
of a wire of length L and
𝑉 𝐿
𝑅= =𝜌 cross section A,
𝑖 𝐴 establishing a current i.
R contains the info on both the material and geometry.
& contain the info on the material only.
26-3 Resistance and Resistivity
The resistivity ρ for most materials changes
with temperature. For many materials,
including metals, the relation between ρ and
temperature T is approximated by the
equation
Here T0 is a reference temperature, ρ0 is the
resistivity at T0, and α is the temperature
coefficient of resistivity for the material.
The resistivity of copper as
a function of temperature.
26-4 Ohm’s Law
Figure (a) shows how to distinguish among
devices. A potential difference V is applied across
the device being tested, and the resulting current i
through the device is measured as V is varied.
Ohmic
Figure (b) is a plot of i versus V for one device. This
plot is a straight line passing through the origin, so
the ratio i/V (the slope of the straight line) is the
same for all values of V. Thus the resistance of the
device is independent of the magnitude and polarity
of the applied potential difference V. Non-
ohmic
Figure (c) is for another conducting device. Current
can exist in this device only when the polarity of V
is positive and the applied potential difference is
more than about 1.5 V. When current does exist,
the relation between i and V is not linear.
26-4 Ohm’s Law
26-4 Ohm’s Law
A Microscopic View
The assumption that the conduction
electrons in a metal are free to move like the
molecules in a gas leads to an expression
for the resistivity of a metal:
Here n is the number of free electrons per unit volume and τ is the
mean time between the collisions of an electron with the atoms of
the metal.
Metals obey Ohm’s law because the mean free time τ is
approximately independent of the magnitude E of any electric field
applied to a metal.
26-4 Ohm’s Law
Proof
The gray lines show an
electron moving from A to B,
making six collisions en route.
The green lines show what
the electron’s path might be in
the presence of an applied
electric field E. Note the
steady drift in the direction of
-E.
26-5 Power, Semiconductors,
Superconductors
Figure shows a circuit consisting of a battery B that is
connected by wires, which we assume have negligible
resistance, to an unspecified conducting device. The
battery maintains a potential difference of magnitude V
across its own terminals and thus (because of the wires)
across the terminals of the unspecified device, with a
greater potential at terminal a than at terminal b.
The power P, or rate of energy transfer, in an electrical
device across which a potential difference V is 𝑑𝑈 = 𝑑𝑞 𝑉 = 𝑖𝑑𝑡 𝑉
maintained is 𝑃=
𝑑𝑈
= 𝑖𝑉
𝑑𝑡
If the device is a resistor, the power can also be written as
*1 VA =1 (J/C) (C/s) = 1 J/s = 1 W
26-5 Power, Semiconductors,
Superconductors
Semiconductors are materials that have few conduction electrons but can
become conductors when they are doped with other atoms that contribute
charge carriers.
In a semiconductor, n (number of free electrons) is small (unlike conductor)
but increases very rapidly with temperature as the increased thermal
agitation makes more charge carriers available. This causes a decrease of
resistivity with increasing temperature, as indicated by the negative
temperature coefficient of resistivity for silicon.
26-5 Power, Semiconductors,
Superconductors
Superconductors are materials that lose all electrical resistance
below some critical temperature. Most such materials require very
low temperatures, but some become superconducting at
temperatures as high as room temperature (???).
The resistance of mercury drops to
zero at a temperature of about 4 K.
