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An electric field (sometimes called E-field [1]) is a physical field that surrounds electrically charged particles.In classical electromagnetism, the electric field of a single charge (or group of charges) describes their capacity to exert attractive or repulsive forces on another charged object.
The concept of electric potential is closely linked to that of the electric field. A small charge placed within an electric field experiences a force, and to have brought that charge to that point against the force requires work. The electric potential at any point is defined as the energy required to bring a unit test charge from an infinite ...
The electrostatic field causes separation of these pairs, establishing an electromotive force in the process. The electric field sends the electron to the p-type material, and the hole to the n-type material. If an external current path is provided, electrical energy will be available to do work.
Field lines depicting the electric field created by a positive charge (left), negative charge (center), and uncharged object (right). A field line is a graphical visual aid for visualizing vector fields. It consists of an imaginary integral curve which is tangent to the field vector at each point along its length.
Electrical energy is energy related to forces on electrically charged particles and the movement of those particles (often electrons in wires, but not always). This energy is supplied by the combination of current and electric potential (often referred to as voltage because electric potential is measured in volts) that is delivered by a circuit (e.g., provided by an electric power utility).
When talking about electrostatic potential energy, time-invariant electric fields are always assumed so, in this case, the electric field is conservative and Coulomb's law can be used. Using Coulomb's law, it is known that the electrostatic force F and the electric field E created by a discrete point charge Q are radially directed from Q.
He realized that electric and magnetic fields are not only fields of force which dictate the motion of particles, but also have an independent physical reality because they carry energy. These ideas eventually led to the creation, by James Clerk Maxwell , of the first unified field theory in physics with the introduction of equations for the ...
where all boldfaced quantities are vectors: F is the force that a particle with charge q experiences, E is the electric field at the location of the particle, v is the velocity of the particle, B is the magnetic field at the location of the particle. The above equation illustrates that the Lorentz force is the sum of two vectors.