Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Electric current
Electric current
• Electric current is a flow of electric charge (a phenomenon) or the
rate of flow of electric charge (a quantity).
• The SI unit for measuring the rate of flow of electric charge is the
ampere, which is charge flowing through some surface at the rate
of one coulomb per second. Electric current is measured using an
ammeter.
j = σE ,
• [σ]=Ohm-1m-1
el
j = enµE µ= Drift mobility
2m vth
1
• ρ= [ρ]=Ohm.m
σ
A
ε = , [V ]
q
r r 2 r* r 2 1 r r
( )
2
r r r*
j =σ E + E , ∫ E ⋅ dl + ∫ E ⋅ dl = ∫ j ⋅ dl ,
1 1 1
σ
2
I
ϕ1 − ϕ 2 + ε 12 = ∫ ρ dl , IR = ϕ1 − ϕ 2 + ε 12 Macroscopic approach
1
S
Ohm’s law
• Voltage
U = ϕ1 − ϕ 2 = IR
• If the current in a conductor is
proportional the potential difference
(or voltage) driving the current through
the conductor we say that Ohm's Law
is obeyed.
• R, the resistance of the conductor, is
the constant of proportionality or the
slope of the voltage vs. current graph.
ρ l l
R = ∫ dl = ρ , ρ=R S
S l S S
• A conductor such as a metal has high conductivity and a low resistivity.
• An insulator like glass has low conductivity and a high resistivity.
• The conductivity of a semiconductor is generally intermediate,
Resistance
• Electrical resistivity of metals increases with temperature, while the
resistivity of semiconductors decreases with increasing temperature. In
both cases, electron–phonon interactions can play a key role. At high
temperatures, the resistance of a metal increases linearly with
temperature.
ρ
1
ρ~ ~ A2 ~ T
l
∆R R − R0
= α∆T , = α (T − T0 )
R0 - resistance at
R0 standard temperature
R0 (200C)
α - temperature
coefficient of
resistance
Superconductivity
• Some materials lose all electrical resistivity at sufficiently low
temperatures, due to an effect known as superconductivity.
A high-temperature superconductor
levitating above a magnet
• Devices convert electrical energy into many useful forms, such as heat
(electric heaters), light (light bulbs), motion (electric motors), sound
(loudspeaker), information technological processes (computers), or even
chemical changes
P = I2 R = U2/R, Q= I2 R t
– where R is the electrical resistance.
Thermoelectric effect
• The thermoelectric effect is the direct conversion of temperature
differences to electric voltage and vice versa.
For low E:
j=e
g
(µ ++ µ − )E Avalanche
r effect
l between
For high E: two
j = gel electrodes
It is found in products
such as neon lamps
and plasma-screen
televisions, and is used
in plasma physics and
analytical chemistry.
Electric discharge in gases
• The breakdown voltage for the glow discharge depends nonlinearly
on the product of gas pressure and electrode distance according to
Paschen's law.
• For a certain pressure × distance value, there is a lowest
breakdown voltage. The increase of strike voltage for shorter
electrode distances is related to too long mean free path of the
electrons in comparison with the electrode distance.
On the left side of the
Paschen minimum, the pd
product is small. The
electron mean free path
can become long
compared to the gap
between the electrodes.
A greater voltage is
therefore required to
assure ionization of
enough gas molecules to
start an avalanche.
Electric discharge in gases
• III arc discharge, which occurs in the ampere range of the
current; the voltage across the tube drops with increasing current.
• An arc discharge is characterized by a lower voltage than a glow
discharge, and relies on thermionic emission of electrons from the
electrodes supporting the arc.
Industrially, electric arcs are used for welding, plasma cutting, for electrical
discharge machining, as an arc lamp in movie projectors and followspots in
stage lighting.
Corona discharge
• In electricity, a corona discharge is an electrical discharge brought
on by the ionization of a fluid surrounding a conductor, which occurs
when the potential gradient (the change in the strength of the
electric field) exceeds a certain value, but conditions are insufficient
to cause complete electrical breakdown or arcing.
• Corona discharge usually involves two asymmetric electrodes; one
highly curved (such as the tip of a needle, or a small diameter wire)
and one of low curvature (such as a plate, or the ground). The high
curvature ensures a high potential gradient around one electrode, for
the generation of a plasma.
• Manufacture of ozone
• Sanitization of pool water
• Improvement of wetability or 'surface tension
energy' of polymer films to improve compatibility
with adhesives or printing inks
• Photocopying
• Air ionisers
Atmospheric pressure discharge!
Spark discharge
• When a gas is subjected to high voltage stress, the electric field is often
quite non-uniform near one, or both, of the high voltage electrodes
making up a spark gap. Breakdown initially begins with the formation of
corona discharges near the electrode with the highest electrical stress.
• If the electrical field is further increased, longer length cold discharges
(called streamers or burst corona) sporadically form near the stressed
electrode.
• Streamers are actually electron avalanches, each one typically lasting
only a few nanoseconds. Streamers redistribute charge within the
surrounding gas, temporarily forming regions of excess charge (space
charges) in the regions surrounding the discharges.
• When all the electrons emitted from the cathode are attracted by the anode,
the current reaches its maximum saturation value.
• If the voltage is increased further, the plate current will not increase because
at this stage all the electrons emitted by the cathode are attracted by anode
as rapidly as they are emitted. The maximum current is called saturation
current and it depends upon the temperature of the filament only.
∞ A
js = e ∫ f (w)dw
− 2πmk 2
js = CT 2 e kT C=
0 h3
Richardson's Law: where j is the emission current density [SI unit: A/m2], T is the
thermodynamic temperature of the metal [kelvin (K)], A is the work function of the
metal, k is the Boltzmann constant, and C is a parameter.
Plasma
• Plasma is a gas consisting of charged ions and electrons (Irving
Langmuir introduced the word plasma in 1928 to describe an ionized
gas).
• Over a large volume the plasma is quasi-neutral, meaning that the
number of free negative charges is equal to the number of free
positive charges.
•The figure illustrates plasma of
free ions and electrons formed by
fully ionizing the hydrogen gas.
r
q0 −
ϕ= e λD
, Λ = 4πλ D ne 3
4πε 0
ne is the number density of electrons,
λD is the Debye length.
Plasma
• 2. Bulk interactions: The Debye screening length (defined above) is
short compared to the physical size of the plasma. This criterion means
that interactions in the bulk of the plasma are more important than
those at its edges, where boundary effects may take place. When this
criterion is satisfied, the plasma is quasineutral.
• 3. Plasma frequency: The electron plasma frequency (measuring plasma
oscillations of the electrons) is large compared to the electron-neutral
collision frequency (measuring frequency of collisions between electrons
and neutral particles). When this condition is valid, electrostatic
interactions dominate over the processes of ordinary gas kinetics.
Plasma
Plasma
• Artificial plasmas
• Plasma generated in a laboratory setting and for industrial use can be generally
categorized by:
• The type of power source used to generate the plasma;
– DC, RF and microwave.
• The pressure at which they operate; vacuum pressure
– (< 10 mTorr or 1 Pa),
– moderate pressure (~ 1 Torr or 100 Pa),
– atmospheric pressure (760 Torr or 100 kPa).
• The degree of ionization within the plasma;
– fully ionized,
– partially ionized,
– weakly ionized.
The temperature relationships within the plasma:
– thermal plasma (Te = Tion = Tgas),
– non-thermal or "cold" plasma (Te >> Tion = Tgas)
• The electrode configuration used to generate the plasma.
• The magnetization of the particles within the plasma;
– Magnetized (both ion and electrons are trapped in Larmor orbits by the magnetic
field),
– partially magnetized (the electrons but not the ions are trapped by the magnetic field),
– non-magnetized (the magnetic field is too weak to trap the particles in orbits but may
generate Lorentz forces).
Plasma globe
• Plasma lamp is usually a clear glass orb filled with a mixture of
various gases (most commonly helium and neon, sometimes with
other noble gases such as xenon and krypton) at low pressure
(below 0.01 atmosphere) and driven by high-frequency alternating
current at approximately 35 kHz, 2–5 kV, generated by a high-
voltage transformer
• Placing a hand near the glass alters the high-frequency electric field,
causing a single beam to migrate from the inner ball to the point of
contact. The glass acts as a dielectric in a capacitor formed between
the ionized gas and the hand.