Electric Potential

By: Gift Chileshe

 Electric Potential

 An electric potential is the amount of work

needed to move a unit of charge from a
reference point to a specific point inside the
field without producing an acceleration. 
 consider an electric field between two equally

but oppositely charged plates a and b whose

separation is small. The electric field would
be uniform between these plates.
 a
- - - - -

+ + + + b
 a
- - - - -

+q
+ + + + b
If we release a charge +q from the positive
plate b the electric force would accelerate the
charge toward the negative plate.
 Work
 The electric field will do work to move the charge
across the electric field.
◦ W = ΔKE
 The charge has high Electrical Potential
Energy near b
 As the charge move closer to a, the Electrical

PE decreases while the KE increases

◦ The size of PE is dependent on the size of the
electric field
 Electric Potential

 Electric Potential – the electric potential per

unit charge between the plates
◦ V for voltage (the symbol and unit are the same)
 V = PEelectric/q
◦ It is impossible to find the V at any point in an
electric field
 We can only measure the difference in
potential between two points.
 Electric Potential
V = Va - Vb
ba
 V = PE /q – PE /q
ba a b
 V = ΔPE/q
ba
 ΔPE = qV
b
 ΔU = qV
 Where ΔU is the transformation

of PE to KE and vice versa.

 Electric Potential and Work
 Vba = W/q
◦ where W is the net work to move the charge across
the magnetic field.
◦ The unit for voltage is Joules/Coulomb, or simply
Volts in honor of Alessandro Volta.
Electric Potential and Direction
 We define the direction of the electric field as
originating at areas of high potential (the
positive plate in the picture) and ending at
areas of low potential (the negative plate)
Electric Potential and Direction
 Often the areas of low potential are assigned
a Zero value.
◦ Called ground.
 Example I
 A charge of –6.0μC is moved from ground to
a point where the potential is +75V. a) What
is the change in PE? b) Is the work done by
the electric field positive or negative? c) How
much work is done by the electric field?
 Answer
 -4.5x10-4J, Positive, 4.5x10-4J
 Example II
 An electron, released from plate A accelerates
to plate B acquiring 3.2x10-15J of KE. a) What
is the potential difference across the plates?
b) Which plate has the higher potential?
 Answer
 KE = -PE, 2.0x104V, B is at a higher potential
 The Electron Volt
 The joule is a large quantity of energy when
dealing with protons and electrons. The
electron volt (eV) is much smaller. It often
provides a more meaningful magnitude for
expressing energies
 The eV
 1eV is defined as the amount of energy
required to move an electron through a
potential difference of 1Volt
◦ An electron that accelerates through a potential
difference of 100V will lose 100eV of electric
potential energy and gain 100eV of kinetic energy.
The eV is not a proper SI unit so we must convert to
Joules when performing calculations involving SI
units.
◦ 1.0eV = 1.6x10-19J