In this article, students will get revision notes on CBSE

Class 12 Physics, Chapter 1: Electric Charges and Fields.

These notes are very useful for revision purposes before
the exam.

The complete chapter is divided into several parts and this

is the Part - I.

Electrostatics
Electrostatics deals with the study of forces, fields and
potentials arising from static charges. The name electricity
is coined from the Greek word elektron meaning amber.

Important facts about Electric Charges

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The name electricity is coined from the Greek word

elektron meaning amber.

There are two kinds of charges.

By convention, the charge on electron is considered as
negative & the charge on proton is considered as positive.

If we say that a body is charged, it means body have

excess or deficit of electrons.
A body having negative charge implies that body has
excess of electrons. A body having positive charge implies
that body is deficient of electrons.

In solids, some of the electrons, being less tightly bound in

the atom, are the charges which are transferred from one
body to the other. A body can thus be charged positively
by losing some of its electrons. Similarly, a body can be
charged negatively by gaining electrons.

The SI unit of electric charge is coulomb. The c.g.s. unit of

charge is stat coulomb.

Gold - Leaf Electroscope

It is a device used to detect the nature and amount of

electric charge present in a charged body.

It consists of a vertical metal rod housed in a box, with two

thin gold leaves attached to its bottom end. When a
charged object touches the metal knob at the top of the
rod, charge flows on to the leaves and they diverge. The
degree of divergance is an indicator of the amount of
charge.

Basic Properties of Electric Charges

Additivity of Charges:
If a system contains two point chargesq1 andq2, the total
charge of the system is obtained simply by adding
algebraicallyq1 andq2 , i.e., charges add up like real
numbers or they are scalars like the mass of a body.
If a system containsnchargesq1,q2,q3, …,qn, then the total
charge of the system isq1 +q2 +q3 + … +qn.
Charge is conserved:
Within an isolated system consisting of many charged
bodies, due to interactions among the bodies, charges may
get redistributed but it is found that the total charge of the
isolated system is always conserved.

Quantisation of charge
Experimentally it is established that all free charges are
integral multiples of a basic unit of charge denoted bye.
Thus chargeqon a body is always given byq=ne, herenis any
integer, positive or negative. This basic unit of charge is
the charge that an electron or proton carries. By
convention, the charge on an electron is taken to be
negative; therefore charge on an electron is written as –
eand that on a proton as +e. (e= 1.602192 × 10 C)
–19

Methods of Charging
A body can be charged by friction, induction and
conduction.

Charging by Friction:
When certain insulators are rubbed with cloth or fur, they
become electrically charged due to the transfer or charge
or electrons. As the two objects are rubbed together, one
object loses electrons while the other gains electrons.

There is a transfer of electrons from one object to the

other. The object that gains electrons becomes negatively
charged, while the object that loses electrons has an
excess of positive charge. Hence it is positively charged.
The transfer of charge is due to the contact between the
materials, and the amount of charge transferred depends
on the nature of these materials.

Charging by Induction:
Induction is the process by which a uncharged body is
charged by using a charged body without actual contact
between them or losing its own
charge.
If a charged body is brought near a neutral body, the
charged body attracts opposite charge and repels similar
charge present on the
neutral body.
Afterwards, the neutral body is earthed and the like charge
is neutralised by the flow of charge from earth leaving
unlike charge on
the body. Now the earthing and the charging body are
removed leaving the initially neutral body charged.
Charging by Conduction:
In the process of charging by conduction, direct contact of
charged and uncharged body is involved and both objects
acquire the same kind of charge. If a negative object is
used to charge a neutral object, then both objects become
charged negatively and vice versa.

Coulomb's law
According to this law "The magnitude of the electric force
between two static point charges, in vacuum, is directly
proportional to the product of the magnitude of the two
charges and inversely proportional to the square of the
distance between them and acts along the straight line
joining the two charges".

The magnitude of Coulomb's law is given by the

expression:

Where,Fis the force between two point charges, q1 andq2 are

magnitude of charges,ris the distance between these
charges.
Some facts about Coulomb’s law:
• Coulomb's law should be used for point charges in
vacuum at rest. It is not valid for charges in motion.
• The electrostatics force acts along the line joining the
two charges. It obeys Newton's third law of motion.

• Coulomb's force is not affected by the presence of other

charges in the neighborhood; hence, the principle of
superposition is valid.

• Force between like charges is repulsive and between

unlike charges attractive.

Coulomb’s law in vector form:

Superposition Principle:

Important revision notes of Chapter 2 - Electrostatic

Potential and Capacitance are available in this article.
Important concepts related to electrostatic potential are
already covered in part I, in part II we will mainly focus
on concepts related to dielectric and electric capacitance.
• Dielectrics

• Types of dielectrics
• Dielectric Polarization

• Capacitor

• Capacitance of a Capacitor

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• Capacitance of an Isolated Conducting Sphere

• Parallel Plate Capacitor and Its Capacitance

• Combination of Capacitors

• Effect of Conductors in Capacitor

• Effect of Dielectrics in Capacitor

• Energy Stored in Capacitor

• Total Energy of the combination of capacitors

• Energy Density or Energy per Unit Volume

• Common Potential of charge capacitors

• Energy dissipated when two charged capacitors are

connected

Dielectrics:
Dielectrics are non-conducting substances. In contrast to
conductors, they have no (or negligible number of) charge
carriers.

Types of dielectrics:
Dielectrics are of two types:

(i) Non-Polar Dielectrics: When the centre of positive

charge coincides with the centre of negative charge in a
molecule, e.g., Nitrogen, Oxygen, CO2 etc.
(ii) Polar Dielectrics: When the centre of positive and
negative charges do not coincide because of the
asymmetric shape of the molecules, e.g., NH3, HCl etc.
CBSE Class 12 Physics Syllabus 2017
Dielectric Polarization:
In a dielectric, this free movement of charges is not
possible. It turns out that the external field induces dipole
moment by stretching or re-orienting molecules of the
dielectric. The collective effect of all the molecular dipole
moments is net charges on the surface of the dielectric
which produce a field that opposes the external field.
Unlike in a conductor, however, the opposing field so
induced does not exactly cancel the external field. It only
reduces it. The extent of the effect depends on the nature
of the dielectric.

Image Source: NCERT Book

Capacitor:
It is an arrangement of primarily two conductors for
storing large amount of electric charge.

Capacitance of a Capacitor:
Capacitance (C) of a capacitor is defined as ratio of charge
(Q) given to the potential difference (V) applied across the
conductors, i.e., C = Q/V.

The SI unit of capacitance is farad (F).

NCERT Exemplar Class 12 Physics

Capacitance of an Isolated Conducting Sphere:
The capacitance (C) of an isolated conducting sphere of
radius (r) is given by C = 4 π ∈or.
Parallel Plate Capacitor and Its Capacitance:
A parallel plate capacitor consists of two large plane
parallel conducting plates separated by a small
distance. The two plates have chargesQand –Q.
Image Source: NCERT Book

Parallel plate capacitor is an arrangement of two large

metal plates of areaAeach kept parallel to each other at a
distancedapart. If the space between the plates is vaccum
(or air) then the capacitance of such an arrangement is
given by,

Combination of Capacitors
We can combine several capacitors of capacitance C1, C2,…,
Cn to obtain a system with some effective capacitance C.
The effective capacitance depends on the way the
individual capacitors are combined. Two simple possible
ways are:
Capacitors in Series:

In series arrangement the magnitudeQof charge on each

plate is same
Capacitors in Parallel

In parallel arrangement the potential difference across the

each capacitor will remain same.

CEquivalent=C1 +C2 +C3 . . . +Cn

CBSE Class 12th Physics Notes: Ray Optics & Optical
Instruments
Effect of Conductors in Capacitor
When a parallel plate capacitor is partially filled with a
metallic slab of thicknesst<d, its capacitance will be:

Effect of Dielectrics in Capacitor

When a dielectric slab of dielectric constantKhaving
thicknesst<dis placed between the plates of parallel plate
capacitor.
The capacitance of the capacitor will be,

Energy Stored in Capacitor

Energy stored (U) in capacitor (C) charged to a potential
differenceVis given as,
Total Energy of the combination of capacitor:
Series combination:

Parallel combination:

Energy Density or Energy per Unit Volume:

The energy density or energy stored per unit volume of a
charged capacitor is given by

Common Potential of charged capacitors

IfC1andC2 are capacitors charged to potentials V1 and
V2 respectively. These capacitors are connected by a
conducting wire, charges flow from higher potential to
lower potential. This flow of charge will continue till their
potentials become equal. There will no charge is lost in
sharing and their common potential is given by,

Energy dissipated when two charged capacitors are

connected
IfU1 is the total energy before sharing of charges andU2 is
total energy after sharing of charges then,

CBSE Class 12th Physics Notes: Electrostatics

Potential and Capacitance (Part - I)