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INTRODUCTION
Electric current is a means by which electrical energy is transferred from one place to another for
utilisation. Charges in motion constitute an electric current. However, to maintain a steady current, a
source of emf is needed.
The amount of charge flowing through a given cross-section of a conductor per unit time
constitutes electric current.
thus set up
electron causing them to move as shown in the figure. The arrows give the direction of the conventional current.
Current is a scalar quantity. The direction of conventional current in any circuit is the direction in which the positive charges
flow. Mathematically, for a steady current across any area,
where I is the current, and q is the charge that flows across that area in time t.
The S.I. unit of current is Ampere (A).
One ampere of current is said to flow through a wire if at any cross section, one coulomb of charge flows in one second.
In solid conductors, the current carriers are the free electrons; in electrolytes, the anions and cations; and in gases, the
electrons and anions.
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No current flows in a copper wire by itself, just as water in a horizontal tube does not flow. If one end of the tube is connected
to a tank with water such that there is a pressure difference between the two ends of the horizontal tube, water flows out of the
other end at a steady rate. The rate at which water flows out depends on the pressure difference, for a given tube. If the flow
rate (current) is to be kept constant, the water flowing out for
instance has to be put back into the jar to maintain the
pressure head. This requires work to be done by an external
agency. The above analogy brings out several features of
electrical current flow. An electric current flows across a
conductor only if there is an electric potential difference
between its two ends. To maintain a steady current flow, one
needs an agency, which does work on the charges. This
agency is called the electromotive force or emf.
In the case of water flow, the agency is the pump 'P' which
does work at a steady rate in putting the water back into the
tank. Just as for a given tube, the current of fluid flowing out
depends on its viscosity, the electrical current flowing for a
given potential difference depends on the electrical
resistance of the conductor.
The above circuit diagram shows the flow of charges. A steady electric current 'I' flows
through the resistance R, from A to B. That is, positive charges flow from higher potential
(A) to lower potential (B).
The potential drop from A and B is V. The source P of emf does work on these charges,
as they come through at B because it has to take the positive charges from lower to
higher potential. The charge is transferred from one end of the source of emf to the other
and 'qV' work is done on the charge. The source of emf by doing work on the electric
charges, maintains a potential difference V between its terminals.
or
V = IR
Resistivity
The resistance of a resistor depends on the nature of the material, its geometrical features (length and cross-sectional area)
and on the temperature and pressure. It is useful to separate out the dependence on the geometrical factor.
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Consider a rectangular slab of some conducting material, of length l and cross-sectional area A. If the length is doubled (fig.
(a)) for a fixed current I, the potential drop across the slab also doubles. (This is because the potential difference is the electric
field times the distance, and for a fixed current, the electric field that drives it, stays the same).
Now, suppose that the slab is cut lengthwise into two parallel slabs (fig.
(b)) each of area A/2. If the current flowing through the full slab is I for a
given voltage V, then the current flowing through each half -slab is I/2.
Therefore, the resistance of each half - slab is twice that of original full
slab. But these two slabs differ only in the cross - sectional area. Thus,
where r, the constant of proportionality, is called resistivity. It depends only on the nature of the material and its physical
conditions. The unit of r is ohm m (Wm).
Material
Nature
Copper
Metal
1.7x10- 8
Iron
Metal
9.68x10- 8
Manganin
Alloy
48x10- 8
Nichrome
Alloy
100x10- 8
Pure Silicon
Semiconductor
2.5x 103
Pure Germanium
Semiconductor
0.6
Glass
Insulator
1010 to 1014
Mica
Insulator
1011 to 1015
The reciprocal of resistance of a conductor is called its conductance (G). Therefore, G = 1/R. The S.I. unit of conductance is
mho or siemen (S). The inverse of resistivity of a conductor is called its conductivity (s);
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The S.I. unit of conductivity is siemen metre-1 (sm-1) or mho m-1 or (Wm)-1.
Good electrical conductors such as metals are usually good conductors of heat also. Insulators such as ceramic and plastic
materials are also poor conductors of heat.
In metals, the free electrons that carry charge in electrical conduction also provide the principal mechanism for heat
conduction.
Semiconductors
Semiconductors have resistivities intermediate between those of metals and insulators. They are important because of the
way they are affected by temperature and small amount of impurities.
Equation Colour
Numbe
r
(Black) B
(Brown) B
(Red) R
(Orange)O
(Yellow) Y
(Green) G
(Blue) B
(Violet) V
(Grey) G
(White) W
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
The first two colour bands (i.e., A and B) from the end indicate the first two significant figures of the resistance in ohms. The
third colour band i.e., C indicates the decimal multiplier and the last band D stands for the tolerance in percent about the
indicated value. If this last band is gold, the tolerance is 5%, if silver it is 10%. If it is absent, the tolerance is 20%.
Example: If ABCD represent colours yellow, violet, brown and gold respectively, the value of the resistance will be
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Origin of Resistivity
In electrostatic situations, the electric field is zero everywhere within
the conductor, and there is no current. This does not mean that all
charges within the conductor are at rest. In metals such as copper or
aluminium, some of the electrons are free to move within the
conducting material. These free electrons move randomly in all
directions with a speed of the order of 10 6 ms-1. But, the electrons do
not escape from the material as they are attracted to the positive ions
of the material. Since the motion of the electrons is random, there is no
net flow in any direction and hence the current is zero.
When the same metal is in an electric field, the electrons are subjected to a steady force given by
were moving in vacuum, the steady force would cause a steady
If the electrons
where
is the coulomb's force experienced by each electron and m is the mass of the electron.
where t, the relaxation time, is the average time that an electron spends between two collisions. It is of the order of 10 -14 s.
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Now the volume of the conductor is equal to Al and if n is the number of free electrons per unit volume, then, the total number
of free electrons in the conductor will be equal to n Al.
Hence, the total charge q = - n Ale
The time taken by free electrons to cross the conductor is
Also
I = - neAVd
or
where,
R : resistance of the conductor, m : mass of the electrons, l : length of the conductor, n : density of free electrons in the
conductor. e : electronic charge. A : area of cross-section, : relaxation time
From this, the relaxation time r for a metal can be estimated, using the observed values of r. For copper at room
temperature, r = 1.7 x 102 mW m. The number density of electrons is ~ 8.5 x 10 22m-3 (using the density of copper). Substituting
these, along with the known values of m and e, we get t = 2 x 10-7 s, which agrees with values obtained by other methods.
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Mobility
In metals, the mobile charge carriers are the electrons, in an ionized gas, they are electrons and positive ions; in electrolytes,
these are both positive and negative ions. In a semiconductor such as Ge or Si, conduction is partly duer to electrons and
partly due to holes which are sites of missing electrons. Holes act as positive charges.
The mobility m is defined as the magnitude of the drift velocity per unit electric field, i.e.,
where o is the resistivity at a reference temperature T o and (T) is the resistivity at temperature T. is called the temperature
coefficient of resistivity and has dimensions of (oC)-1.
However, the temperature dependence of at low temperatures is non-linear as shown in figure given below.
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In metals, the number of free electrons, n does not change with temperature. But, as temperature increases, the atoms/ions
vibrate with increasing amplitude. Therefore, the collisions of electrons with them become more frequent, resulting in a
decrease in t. This means an increase in with increase in temperature.
In both insulators and semiconducotors, t remains almost constant, but the number of free charge carriers increases with
temperature. At any temperature T, the number of carriers is given by
n(T) = n0 exp (Eg/kB T)
where Eg is the energy gap between the conduction and valence bonds. From this, we can get the temperature dependence
of to be
(t) = 0 exp (Eg/kB T)
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The graph shows the characteristics of a device known as a thyristor, which consists of four alternate layers of P and n-type
semiconductors. We find that V is not directly proportional to I. All the properties 1 to 3 are seen and the region (PQ) is still
more interesting. Here the current carried by the device increases as the voltage decreases. Other examples of non-ohmic
devices are electrolytes, thermistors.
A more fundamental breakdown of Ohm's Law occurs in certain alloys at very low temperatures ( <4K)
It is observed that the resistance of a uniform wire made of the alloy of length 2l is more than twice the resistance of the wire
of length l. This can be understood in terms of the wave character of electrons, which leads to interference effects. This
increases the resistance beyond what would be if electrons flowed like water.
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Superconductivity
Some materials, including several metals and alloys, exhibit a phenomenon called superconductivity. As the temperature
decreases, the resistivity at first decreases smoothly like that of any metal. But then at a certain critical temperature T C, a
phase transition occurs and the resistivity drops suddenly to zero. And electric current established in a super conducting ring
continues indefinitely without the presence of any driving field. Superconductivity was discovered in 1911 by the Dutch
physicist Heike Kamerlingle Onnes.
Superconductors display the Meissner effect which is discussed below.
Meissner Effect
In 1933, Meissner and Ochsenfeld found that if a superconducting material is cooled to below its transition temperature, in a
magnetic field, then the lines of induction B are pushed out. This is shown in the figure below.
High Tc Superconductivity
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This table shows that some materials, mainly oxides, have a fairly high critical temperature T c. The 125K bulk super
conducting oxide was discovered in 1988. High T csuperconductors have promising commercial applications in thin film
devices, levitated vehicles and long distance power transmission.
In MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) instruments, superconducting magnets made with these high T c materials are being
used. These can be cooled with liquid nitrogen. Earlier, liquid helium was required which was much more expensive.
Resistances in Series
If the resistances are connected end-to-end, the same current flows through each resistance, as there is no alternative path.
Then
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where I is the current, V is the potential difference of the battery and R S is the equivalent resistance of the combination.
Now,
V = V1+V2+V3
IRS = I1R1 + IR2 + IR3
Therefore,
Resistance in Parallel
RS = R1+ R2 + R3
If the resistance are in parallel, the potential difference across each is the same, but the current is not. Then,
I = I 1 + I2 + I3
For the special case of only two resistors in parallel, the expression for the equivalent resistance takes on a particularly simple
form, i.e.,
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Next, consider the following two networks where the resistances are connected in series - parallel combinations.
The first network can be simplified by replacing the parallel combination of R 2 and R3 with its equivalent resistance. This is
then in series with R1.
In the second network, the combination of R2 and R3 in series forms a simple parallel combination with R1.
But, not all networks can be reduced to simple series - parallel combinations, and special methods are required.
Internal Resistance
When current is drawn from a cell, ions move within the cell from one electrode to another. The resistance offered by the
electrodes and electrolytes to these, measure the internal resistance of the cell.The internal resistance of a cell depends on
the distance between the plates, the nature of the electrolytes, the concentration of electrolytes, the nature of the electrodes
and the area of the plates.
It is usual practice to represent internal resistance of a cell like a series resistor, external to the cell as shown.
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Let e, r be the emf and internal resistance of a cell and R - the external resistance. A high resistance voltmeter V is connected
as shown.
When K is opened (i.e., open circuit) emf, the voltmeter reads the emf (e) of the cell as no current flows through the circuit.
When K is closed (i.e., closed circuit), a current 'I' flows in the circuit. Hence, we have
Therefore, the external voltage V is less than the emf of the cell, e. It is as though an internal resistance r is in series with the
external resistance R, and this determines the current in the circuit for a given source of emf.
Also,
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Kirchhoff's Rules
Consider the following two circuits. Neither can be solved by series-parallel combinations.
Many practical resistor networks cannot be reduced to simple, series-parallel combinations. The above circuit shows a DC
power supply with EMF E1 charging a battery with a smaller EMF E 2 and feeding current to a light bulb with resistance R. Here
we cannot identify the resistances in series or in parallel. So, German physicist Gustow Robert Kirchoff developed a
technique. He introduced two terms. One is 'junction' and the other is 'loop'.
Before going on to Kirchoff's rules, we need to introduce two terms - junction and loop.
In the above circuits a, b, c, d are junctions but not e, f.
Some possible loops are acdba, acdefa, abdefa and abcdefa.
Therefore,
I1 + I 4 = I 2 + I 3 + I 5
Hence,
I1 + I 4 - I 2 - I 3 - I 5 = 0
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I = 0
or
This rule is based on energy conservation, i.e., the net change in the energy of a charge after completing the closed path is
zero. Otherwise, one can continuously gain energy by circulating charge in a particular direction.
The product of resistance and current, i.e., the IR term, in any arm of the circuit is taken negative if one moves in a closed
path, in the same direction of the assumed current; and positive if in the opposite direction.
Assume unknown currents in a given circuit and show their directions by arrows.
Choose any closed loop and find the algebraic sum of voltage drops plus the algebraic sum of the emfs in that closed
loop and equate it to zero.
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Write equations for as many closed loops as the number of unknown quantities. Solve the equations to find the
unknown quantities.
If the value of assumed current is negative, it means that the actual direction of the current is opposite to that of the
assumed direction.
Ammeter
An ammeter is connected in series with the circuit element whose current is to be measured, so that there is only a negligible
change in the circuit resistance and hence circuit current.
Let the galvanometer resistance be G and the current for full-scale deflection be I g. To measure larger currents, a suitable low
resistance S (called shunt) is connected in parallel with the galvanometer.
The value of S is chosen by the maximum current I that we want to measure. This means that though the circuit current is I,
only a current Ig should be through the galvanometer. The remaining current
I Ig = Is should flow through the shunt. Equating potential differences across the shunt and galvanometer, we get
(I Ig) S = Ig G
RA < S
So, the shunt not only extends the range of current (from Ig to I), it extends the range of current (from G to RA) of the ammeter.
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Voltmeter
A voltmeter is connected in parallel with the circuit element across which potential difference is to be measured. It should have
a very high resistance as not to alter the circuit resistance, and hence circuit current.
The galvanometer can measure voltages upto I GG. For larger potential differences, a suitable high resistance R (called
multiplier) is connected in series.
The value of R is chosen according to the maximum voltage V that we want to measure. But the galvanometer by itself can
only handle a voltage of IgG. The remaining potential difference (V - IgG) should be across the multiplier R. The current through
it is Ig. Therefore, equating voltage drops, we get
V = Ig G + Ig R
The resistance of the voltmeter (i.e., a galvanometer in series with a high resistance) is
RV = G + R
Since R is high, multiplier increases the resistance of the voltmeter, and of course, extends the voltage range (from I gG to V).
Wheatstone Bridge
This is used to measure an unknown resistance accurately. It consists of 4 resistors (2 fixed known resistances P and Q, a
known variable resistance R and the unknown resistance X) connected as shown in the figure.
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Wheatstone's network
A source of emf is connected across one pair of opposite junctions (A and C), and a galvanometer G across the other opposite
pair (B and D). The key K1 is closed first and then K2. The value of R is varied till the galvanometer shows no deflection, i.e.,
Ig = 0. Then, the bridge is said to be balanced.
The wheatstone bridge principle states that under balanced conditions, the products of the resistances in the opposite arms
are equal, i.e.,
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I1Q = (I I1)X (2)
Dividing the above two equations, we get
Resistor Q is called the standard arm of the bridge, and resistor P and R are called the ratio arms.
Metre Bridge
This is the simplest form of wheatstone bridge and is specially useful for comparing resistances more accurately. The
construction of the metre bridge is as shown in the below figure.
It consists of one metre resistance wire clamped between two metallic strips bent at right angles and it has two points for
connection. There are two gaps; in one of them a known resistance whose value is to be determined is connected. The
galvanometer is connected with the help of jockey across BD and the cells is connected across AC. After making connections,
the jockey is moved along the wire and the null point is obtained. The segment of length l 1 and (100 l1) form two resistances
of the wheatstone bridge, the other two reistances being R and S. The wire used is of uniform material and cross-section. The
resistance can be found with the help of the following relation
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where is the resistance per unit length of the wire and l 1 is the length of the wire from one end where null point is obtained.
The bridge is most sensitive when null point is somewhere near the middle point of the wire. This is due to end resistances.
End Correction
Sometimes at the end points of the wire, some length is found under the metallic strips and as a result, in addition of length
l1 or (100 l1), some additional length should be added for accurate measurements. The resistance due to this additional
length is called end resistance. If the end resistance is small, it can be determined by first introducing known resistances P
and Q in the gap and obtaining the null point reading l 1, then interchanging P and Q and obtaining the null point reading l 2.
Let and be the lengths on the respective end under the metallic strips, then we have
Hence the values of , can be calculated and suitably accounted for when accurate measurements are required.
Potentiometer
This instrument is identical to the meter bridge except that in this case, the resistance wire is of more than a meter length. This
enables greater accuracy. A standard cell of emf e1 maintains a constant current throughout the wire. As the wire is of uniform
material and cross section, it has uniform resistance per unit length. The potential gradient, i.e., , depends upon the current in
the wire.
If an emf e1 is balanced against the length, say, l1 we have
Similarly, if another emf e2 is balanced against the length, say, l2, we have
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From the above figure, by means of a battery B and rheostat R h, a steady current is passed through the potentiometer wire
AC. Two cells e1 and e2 whose emf's are to be compared are put in such a way that positive terminals are connected to A and
negative terminal to the galvanometer through a two-way plug key k.
First the cell e1 is connected by connecting 1 and 3 points of key K 2 and by moving the jockey K on the potentiometer wire, the
no deflection point is obtained. Let the reading be l1, then
where is the potential gradient and l1 is the length CN. After this, the points 2 and 3 of the key K 2 are connected i.e., the cell
of emf e2 is put into the circuit and again the no deflection point on the wire is obtained. Let this reading be l 2. Then
e2 = rl2
Different sets of observations are taken by varying the variable resistance R k and then mean value of ratio is computed.
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