Fundamentals Physics

Eleventh Edition

Halliday

Chapter 26
Current and Resistance
26-1 Electric Current (1 of 7)
Learning Objectives
26.01 Apply the definition of current as the rate at which
charge moves through a point, including solving for
the amount of charge that passes the point in a given
time interval.
26.02 Identify that current is normally due to the motion
of conduction electrons that are driven by electric
fields (such as those set up in a wire by a battery).

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26-1 Electric Current (2 of 7)
26.03 Identify a junction in a circuit and apply the fact
that (due to conservation of charge) the total current
into a junction must equal the total current out of
the junction.
26.04 Explain how current arrows are drawn in a
schematic diagram of a circuit, and identify that the
arrows are not vectors.

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26-1 Electric Current (3 of 7)
As Fig. (a) reminds us, any isolated conducting loop—
regardless of whether it has an excess charge — is all at
the same potential. No electric field can exist within it or
along its surface.
If we insert a battery in the loop, as in Fig. (b), the
conducting loop is no longer at a single potential. Electric
fields act inside the material making up the loop, exerting
forces on internal charges, causing them to move and thus
establishing a current. (The diagram assumes the motion
of positive charges moving clockwise.)

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26-1 Electric Current (4 of 7)
Figure c shows a section of a conductor, part of a
conducting loop in which current has been established. If
charge dq passes through a hypothetical plane  such as aa 
in time dt, then the current i through that plane is defined
as
dq
i  definition of current .
dt

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26-1 Electric Current (5 of 7)

(c)

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26-1 Electric Current (6 of 7)
Figure (a) shows a conductor with current i0
splitting at a junction into two branches. Because
charge is conserved, the magnitudes of the
currents in the branches must add to yield the
magnitude of the current in the original
conductor, so that
i0  i1  i2 .

Figure (b) suggests, bending or reorienting the

wires in space does not change the validity of
the above equation Current arrows show only a
direction (or sense) of flow along a conductor,
not a direction in space.

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26-1 Electric Current (7 of 7)
A current arrow is drawn in the direction in which positive charge
carriers would move, even if the actual charge carriers are negative
and move in the opposite direction.
Checkpoint 1
The figure here shows a portion of a circuit. What are the magnitude
and direction of the current i in the lower right-hand wire?

Answer: 8A with arrow pointing right

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26-2 Current Density (1 of 7)
Learning Objectives
26.05 Identify a current density and a current density
vector.
26.06 For current through an area element on a cross
section through a conductor (such as a wire),
identify the element’s area vector dA.
26.07 Find the current through a cross section of a
conductor by integrating the dot product of the
current density vector J and the element area
vector dA over the full cross section.
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26-2 Current Density (2 of 7)
26.08 For the case where current is uniformly spread over
a cross section in a conductor, apply the relationship
between the current i, the current density magnitude
J, and the area A.
26.09 Identify streamlines.
26.10 Explain the motion of conduction electrons in terms
of their drift speed.

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26-2 Current Density (3 of 7)
26.11 Distinguish the drift speeds of conduction electrons
from their random-motion speeds, including relative
magnitudes.
26.12 Identify carrier charge density n.
26.13 Apply the relationship between current density J,
charge carrier density n, and charge carrier drift
speed vd.

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26-2 Current Density (4 of 7)
Current i (a scalar quantity) is related to current density
J (a vector quantity) by
i   J  dA.
where dA is a vector perpendicular to a surface element
of area dA and the integral is taken over any surface
cutting across the conductor. The current density J has
the same direction as the velocity of the moving charges
if they are positive charges and the opposite direction if
the moving charges are negative.
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26-2 Current Density (5 of 7)

Streamlines representing current density in the flow

of charge through a constricted conductor.

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26-2 Current Density (6 of 7)

Conduction electrons are actually moving to the right but

the conventional current i is said to move to the left.
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26-2 Current Density (7 of 7)
Current is said to be due to positive charges that are propelled by
the electric field. In the figure, positive charge carriers drift at
speed vd in the direction of the applied electric field E which here is
applied to the left. By convention, the direction of the current
density J and the sense of the current arrow are drawn in that same
direction, as is the drift speed vd.
The drift velocity vd is related to the current density by
J   ne  vd .
Here the product ne, whose SI unit is the coulomb per cubic meter
 C/m3  , is the carrier charge density.
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26-3 Resistance and Resistivity (1 of 8)
Learning Objectives
26.14 Apply the relationship between the potential
difference V applied across an object, the object’s
resistance R, and the resulting current i through the
object, between the application points.
26.15 Identify a resistor.
26.16 Apply the relationship between the electric field
magnitude E set up at a point in a given material,
the material’s resistivity  , and the resulting
current density magnitude J at that point.
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26-3 Resistance and Resistivity (2 of 8)
26.17 For a uniform electric field set up in a wire, apply
the relationship between the electric field
magnitude E, the potential difference V between
the two ends, and the wire’s length L.
26.18 Apply the relationship between resistivity  and
conductivity  .
26.19 Apply the relationship between an object’s
resistance R, the resistivity of its material  , its
length L, and its cross-sectional area A.
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26-3 Resistance and Resistivity (3 of 8)
26.20 Apply the equation that approximately gives a
conductor’s resistivity  as a function of
temperature T.
26.21 Sketch a graph of resistivity  versus temperature
T for a metal.

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26-3 Resistance and Resistivity (4 of 8)
If we apply the same potential difference between the ends of
geometrically similar rods of copper and of glass, very
different currents result. The characteristic of the conductor
that enters here is its electrical resistance. The resistance R of
a conductor is defined as
V
R  definition of R .
i
where V is the potential difference across the conductor and i
is the current through the conductor. Instead of the resistance R
of an object, we may deal with the resistivity  of the material:
E
  definition of  .
J
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26-3 Resistance and Resistivity (5 of 8)
The reciprocal of resistivity is conductivity  of the
material:
1
  definition of  .


Assortment of Resistors

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26-3 Resistance and Resistivity (6 of 8)
Resistance is a property of an object. Resistivity is a property
of a material.

The resistance R of a conducting wire of length L and uniform

cross section is
L
R .
A

Here A is the cross-sectional area.

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26-3 Resistance and Resistivity (7 of 8)
The resistivity  for most materials changes with temperature.
For many materials, including metals, the relation between 
and temperature T is approximated by the equation

  0  0 T  T0  .

Here T0 is a reference temperature 0 is the resistivity at T0,

and  is the temperature coefficient of resistivity for the
material.

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26-3 Resistance and Resistivity (8 of 8)

A potential difference V is applied

between the ends of a wire of The resistivity of copper
length L and cross section A, as a function of
establishing a current i. temperature.

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26-4 Ohm’s Law (1 of 9)
Learning Objectives
26.22 Distinguish between an object that obeys Ohm’s law
and one that does not.
26.23 Distinguish between a material that obeys Ohm’s law
and one that does not.
26.24 Describe the general motion of a conduction electron in
a current.
26.25 For the conduction electrons in a conductor, explain the
relationship between the mean free time  , the effective
speed, and the thermal (random) motion.

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26-4 Ohm’s Law (2 of 9)
26.26 Apply the relationship between resistivity  , number
density n of conduction electrons, and the mean free
time  of the electrons.

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26-4 Ohm’s Law (3 of 9)
Figure (a) shows how to distinguish among devices. A
potential difference V is applied across the device being
tested, and the resulting current i through the device is
measured as V is varied in both magnitude and polarity.

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26-4 Ohm’s Law (4 of 9)
Figure (b) is a plot of i versus V for one device. This plot
is a straight line passing through the origin, so the ratio
i
V (which is the slope of the straight line) is the same for
all values of V. This means that the resistance R  Vi of
the device is independent of the magnitude and polarity
of the applied potential difference V.

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26-4 Ohm’s Law (5 of 9)
Figure (c) is a plot for another conducting device. Current
can exist in this device only when the polarity of V is
positive and the applied potential difference is more than
about 1.5 V. When current does exist, the relation between
i and V is not linear; it depends on the value of the applied
potential difference V.

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26-4 Ohm’s Law (6 of 9)
Ohm’s law is an assertion that the current
through a device is always directly proportional
to the potential difference applied to the device.
V
I V or I
R
A conducting device obeys Ohm’s law when the
resistance of the device is independent of the magnitude
and polarity of the applied potential difference.

A conducting material obeys Ohm’s law when the

resistivity of the material is independent of the
magnitude and direction of the applied electric field.

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26-4 Ohm’s Law (7 of 9)
Checkpoint 4
The following table gives the current i (in amperes)
through two devices for several values of potential
difference V (in volts). From these data, determine which
device does not obey Ohm’s law.
Device 1 Device 1 Device 2 Device 2
V i V i
2.00 4.50 2.00 1.50
3.00 6.75 3.00 2.20
4.00 9.00 4.00 2.80
Answer: Device 2 does not follow ohm’s law.
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26-4 Ohm’s Law (8 of 9)
A Microscopic View
The assumption that the conduction electrons in a metal are free to
move like the molecules in a gas leads to an expression for the
resistivity of a metal:
m
 2 .
e n
Here n is the number of free electrons per unit volume and
 is the mean time between the collisions of an electron
with the atoms of the metal.
Metals obey Ohm’s law because the mean free time  is
approximately independent of the magnitude E of any electric field
applied to a metal.
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26-4 Ohm’s Law (9 of 9)

The gray lines show an electron moving from A to B,

making six collisions en route. The green lines show what
the electron’s path might be in the presence of an applied
electric field E. Note the steady drift in the direction
of  E.
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26-5 Power, Semiconductors,
Superconductors (1 of 7)
Learning Objectives
26.27 Explain how conduction electrons in a circuit lose
energy in a resistive device.
26.28 Identify that power is the rate at which energy is
transferred from one type to another.
26.29 For a resistive device, apply the relationships between
power P, current i, voltage V, and resistance R.
26.30 For a battery, apply the relationship between power P,
current i, and potential difference V.

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26-5 Power, Semiconductors,
Superconductors (2 of 7)
26.31 Apply the conservation of energy to a circuit with a
battery and a resistive device to relate the energy
transfers in the circuit.
26.32 Distinguish conductors, semiconductors, and
superconductors.

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26-5 Power, Semiconductors,
Superconductors (3 of 7)
Figure shows a circuit consisting of a battery B that is connected by
wires, which we assume have negligible resistance, to an
unspecified conducting device. The device might be a resistor, a
storage battery (a rechargeable battery), a motor, or some other
electrical device. The battery maintains a potential difference of
magnitude V across its own terminals and thus (because of the
wires) across the terminals of the unspecified device, with a greater
potential at terminal a of the device than at terminal b.
The power P, or rate of energy transfer, in an electrical device
across which a potential difference V is maintained is
P  iV  rate of electrical energy transfer .

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26-5 Power, Semiconductors,
Superconductors (4 of 7)
If the device is a resistor, the power can also be written as
P  i2R  resistive dissipation 
or,
V2
P  resistive dissipation .
R

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26-5 Power, Semiconductors,
Superconductors (5 of 7)
Semiconductors are materials that have few conduction
electrons but can become conductors when they are doped
with other atoms that contribute charge carriers.
In a semiconductor, n (number of free electrons) is small
(unlike conductor) but increases very rapidly with temperature
as the increased thermal agitation makes more charge carriers
available. This causes a decrease of resistivity with increasing
temperature, as indicated by the negative temperature
coefficient of resistivity for silicon in Table 26-2.
m
 2 .
e n
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26-5 Power, Semiconductors,
Superconductors (6 of 7)
Table 26-2 Some Electrical Properties of Copper and Silicon
Property Copper Silicon
Type of material Metal Semiconductor
Charge carrier density, m 3 8.49  1028 1  1016
Resistivity,   m 1.69  108 2.5  103
Temperature coefficient of resistivity, K 1 +4.3  103 70  103
Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

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26-5 Power, Semiconductors,
Superconductors (7 of 7)

The resistance of mercury drops to zero at a temperature of about

4 K.
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26 Summary (1 of 6)
Current
• The electric current i in a conductor is defined by
dq
i . Equation 26-1
dt
Current Density
• Current is related to current density by

i   J  dA, Equation 26-4

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26 Summary (2 of 6)
Drift Speed of the Charge Carriers
• Drift speed of the charge carriers in an applied electric
field is related to current density by
J   ne  vd , Equation 26-7

Resistance of a Conductor
• Resistance R of a conductor is defined by
V
R Equation 26-8
i

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26 Summary (3 of 6)
• Similarly the resistivity and conductivity of a material
is defined by
1 E
  Equation 26-10&12
 J
• Resistance of a conducting wire of length L and
uniform cross section is
L
R Equation 26-16
A

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26 Summary (4 of 6)
Change of  with Temperature
• The resistivity of most material changes with
temperature and is given as
  0  0 T  T0  . Equation 26-17

Ohm’s Law
• A given device (conductor, resistor, or any other
electrical device) obeys Ohm’s law if its resistance R
(defined by Eq. 26-8 as Vi ) is independent of the
applied potential difference V.
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26 Summary (5 of 6)
Resistivity of a Metal
• By assuming that the conduction electrons in a metal are
free to move like the molecules of a gas, it is possible to
derive an expression for the resistivity of a metal:
m
 2 . Equation 26-22
e n

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26 Summary (6 of 6)
Power
• The power P, or rate of energy transfer, in an electrical
device across which a potential difference V is
maintained is
P  iV Equation 26-26

• If the device is a resistor, we can write

2
V
P  i2R  Equation 26-27&28
R

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