Charge And Current Flashcards
How to work out the number of coulombs of charge
Charge of particle x number of particles
Unit of charge
Coulomb or c
What are free charge carriers
Electrons that aren’t bound to a particular atom
Describe the metallic bond
Lattice structure of positively charged ions
With free delocalised electrons
What does the number density of free electrons mean
Number of electrons per cubic metre
What does a high number density mean
It’s a conductor
If a wire is not connected to a power source what causes the free charges to move
Temperature of the wire (thermal velocity)
But the average velocity is 0
When we attach a power source like a battery to a circuit, the free electrons in the wire will…
Continue to move with a high thermal velocity
Drift slowly around a circuit
What is current
The rate of flow of charge or
How many electrons pass a point per second
What happens to free electrons when a battery is attached to the circuit
Free electrons in the wires drift as they are pulled towards the positive terminal in the battery and they repel from the negative terminal
