3.6 LIMITATIONS OF OHM’S LAW Although Ohm’s law has been found valid over a large class of materials, there do exist materials and devices used in electric circuits where the proportionality of V and I does not hold. The deviations broadly are one or more of the following FIGURE 3.5 The dashed line types: represents the linear Ohm’s (a) V ceases to be proportional to I (Fig. 3.5). law. The solid line is the voltage (b) The relation between V and I depends on the sign of V. In V versus current I for a good other words, if I is the current for a certain V, then reversing conductor. the direction of V keeping its magnitude fixed, does not produce a current of the same magnitude as I in the opposite direction (Fig. 3.6). This happens, for example, in a diode which we will study in Chapter 14. FIGURE 3.6 Characteristic curve FIGURE 3.7 Variation of current of a diode. Note the different versus voltage for GaAs. scales for negative and positive values of the voltage and current. (c) The relation between V and I is not unique, i.e., there is more than one value of V for the same current I (Fig. 3.7). A material exhibiting such behaviour is GaAs. Materials and devices not obeying Ohm’s law in the form of Eq. (3.3) are actually widely used in electronic circuits. In this and a few subsequent chapters, however, we will study the electrical currents in materials that obey Ohm’s law.

3.4 OHM’S LAW A basic law regarding flow of currents was discovered by G.S. Ohm in 1828, long before the physical mechanism responsible for flow of currents was discovered. Imagine a conductor through which a current I is flowing and let V be the potential difference between the ends of the conductor. Then Ohm’s law states that V µ I or, V = R I (3.3) where the constant of proportionality R is called the resistance of the conductor. The SI units of resistance is ohm, and is denoted by the symbol W. The resistance R not only depends on the material of the conductor but also on the dimensions of the conductor. The dependence of R on the dimensions of the conductor can easily be determined as follows. FIGURE 3.2 Consider a conductor satisfying Eq. (3.3) to be in the form of a slab of Illustrating the length l and cross sectional area A [Fig. 3.2(a)]. Imagine placing two such relation R = rl/A for a rectangular slabidentical slabs side by side [Fig. 3.2(b)], so that the length of the of length l and areacombination is 2l. The current flowing through the combination is the of cross-section A. same as that flowing through either of the slabs. If V is the potential difference across the ends of the first slab, then V is also the potential 83difference across the ends of the second slab since the second slab is Reprint 2025-26 Physics identical to the first and the same current I flows through both. The potential difference across the ends of the combination is clearly sum of the potential difference across the two individual slabs and hence equals 2V. The current through the combination is I and the resistance of the combination RC is [from Eq. (3.3)], 2V R C = = 2 R (3.4) I since V/I = R, the resistance of either of the slabs. Thus, doubling the length of a conductor doubles the(1787–1854) resistance. In general, then resistance is proportional to length, R ∝ l (3.5)OHM Georg Simon Ohm (1787– Next, imagine dividing the slab into two by cutting it 1854) German physicist, lengthwise so that the slab can be considered as a professor at Munich. Ohm combination of two identical slabs of length l, but each was led to his law by anSIMON having a cross sectional area of A/2 [Fig. 3.2(c)]. analogy between the For a given voltage V across the slab, if I is the current conduction of heat: the through the entire slab, then clearly the current flowing electric field is analogous to the temperature gradient, through each of the two half-slabs is I/2. Since theGEORG and the electric current is potential difference across the ends of the half-slabs is V, analogous to the heat flow. i.e., the same as across the full slab, the resistance of each of the half-slabs R1 is V V R1 = = 2 = 2 R. (3.6) ( I /2) I Thus, halving the area of the cross-section of a conductor doubles the resistance. In general, then the resistance R is inversely proportional to the cross-sectional area, 1 R ∝ (3.7) A Combining Eqs. (3.5) and (3.7), we have l R ∝ (3.8) A and hence for a given conductor l R = ρ (3.9) A where the constant of proportionality r depends on the material of the conductor but not on its dimensions. r is called resistivity. Using the last equation, Ohm’s law reads I ρl V = I × R = (3.10) A Current per unit area (taken normal to the current), I/A, is called current density and is denoted by j. The SI units of the current density are A/m2. Further, if E is the magnitude of uniform electric field in the conductor whose length is l, then the potential difference V across its 84 ends is El. Using these, the last equation reads Reprint 2025-26 Current Electricity E l = j r l or, E = j r (3.11) The above relation for magnitudes E and j can indeed be cast in a vector form. The current density, (which we have defined as the current through unit area normal to the current) is also directed along E, and is also a vector j (º j E/E). Thus, the last equation can be written as, E = jr (3.12) or, j = s E (3.13) where s º1/r is called the conductivity. Ohm’s law is often stated in an equivalent form, Eq. (3.13) in addition to Eq.(3.3). In the next section, we will try to understand the origin of the Ohm’s law as arising from the characteristics of the drift of electrons.

3.5 DRIFT OF ELECTRONS AND THE ORIGIN OF RESISTIVITY As remarked before, an electron will suffer collisions with the heavy fixed ions, but after collision, it will emerge with the same speed but in random directions. If we consider all the electrons, their average velocity will be zero since their directions are random. Thus, if there are N electrons and the velocity of the ith electron (i = 1, 2, 3, ... N ) at a given time is vi, then 1 N v i = 0 (3.14) N =∑i 1 Consider now the situation when an electric field is present. Electrons will be accelerated due to this field by – e E a = (3.15) m where –e is the charge and m is the mass of an electron. Consider again the ith electron at a given time t. This electron would have had its last collision some time before t, and let ti be the time elapsed after its last collision. If vi was its velocity immediately after the last collision, then its velocity Vi at time t is −e E Vi = v i + t i (3.16) m FIGURE 3.3 A schematic picture of since starting with its last collision it was accelerated an electron moving from a point A to (Fig. 3.3) with an acceleration given by Eq. (3.15) for a another point B through repeated time interval ti. The average velocity of the electrons at collisions, and straight line travel time t is the average of all the Vi’s. The average of vi’s is between collisions (full lines). If an electric field is applied as shown, thezero [Eq. (3.14)] since immediately after any collision, electron ends up at point B¢ (dotted the direction of the velocity of an electron is completely lines). A slight drift in a direction random. The collisions of the electrons do not occur at opposite the electric field is visible. regular intervals but at random times. Let us denote by t, the average time between successive collisions. Then 85 at a given time, some of the electrons would have spent Reprint 2025-26 Physics time more than t and some less than t. In other words, the time ti in Eq. (3.16) will be less than t for some and more than t for others as we go through the values of i = 1, 2 ..... N. The average value of ti then is t (known as relaxation time). Thus, averaging Eq. (3.16) over the N-electrons at any given time t gives us for the average velocity vd e E v d ≡ ( Vi )average = ( v i )average − ( t i )average m e E e E = 0 – τ = − τ (3.17) m m This last result is surprising. It tells us that the electrons move with an average velocity which is independent of time, although electrons are accelerated. This is the phenomenon of drift and the velocity vd in Eq. (3.17) is called the drift velocity. Because of the drift, there will be net transport of charges across any area perpendicular to E. Consider a planar area A, located inside the conductor such that FIGURE 3.4 Current in a metallic the normal to the area is parallel to E (Fig. 3.4). Then conductor. The magnitude of current because of the drift, in an infinitesimal amount of time density in a metal is the magnitude of Dt, all electrons to the left of the area at distances upto charge contained in a cylinder of unit |vd|Dt would have crossed the area. If n is the number area and length vd. of free electrons per unit volume in the metal, then there are n Dt |vd|A such electrons. Since each electron carries a charge –e, the total charge transported across this area A to the right in time Dt is –ne A|vd|Dt. E is directed towards the left and hence the total charge transported along E across the area is negative of this. The amount of charge crossing the area A in time Dt is by definition [Eq. (3.2)] I Dt, where I is the magnitude of the current. Hence, I ∆=t + n e A v d ∆t (3.18) Substituting the value of |vd| from Eq. (3.17) e 2 A I ∆=t τn ∆t E (3.19) m By definition I is related to the magnitude |j| of the current density by I = |j|A (3.20) Hence, from Eqs.(3.19) and (3.20), ne 2 j = τ E (3.21) m The vector j is parallel to E and hence we can write Eq. (3.21) in the vector form ne 2 j = τE (3.22) m Comparison with Eq. (3.13) shows that Eq. (3.22) is exactly the Ohm’s 86 law, if we identify the conductivity s as Reprint 2025-26 Current Electricity ne 2 σ = τ (3.23) m We thus see that a very simple picture of electrical conduction reproduces Ohm’s law. We have, of course, made assumptions that t and n are constants, independent of E. We shall, in the next section, discuss the limitations of Ohm’s law. Example 3.1 (a) Estimate the average drift speed of conduction electrons in a copper wire of cross-sectional area 1.0 × 10–7 m2 carrying a current of 1.5 A. Assume that each copper atom contributes roughly one conduction electron. The density of copper is 9.0 × 103 kg/m3, and its atomic mass is 63.5 u. (b) Compare the drift speed obtained above with, (i) thermal speeds of copper atoms at ordinary temperatures, (ii) speed of propagation of electric field along the conductor which causes the drift motion. Solution (a) The direction of drift velocity of conduction electrons is opposite to the electric field direction, i.e., electrons drift in the direction of increasing potential. The drift speed vd is given by Eq. (3.18) vd = (I/neA) Now, e = 1.6 × 10–19 C, A = 1.0 × 10–7m2, I = 1.5 A. The density of conduction electrons, n is equal to the number of atoms per cubic metre (assuming one conduction electron per Cu atom as is reasonable from its valence electron count of one). A cubic metre of copper has a mass of 9.0 × 103 kg. Since 6.0 × 1023 copper atoms have a mass of 63.5 g, 6.0 × 10 23 6 n = × 9.0 × 10 63.5 = 8.5 × 1028 m–3 which gives, 1.5 v d = 28 –19 –7 8.5 × 10 × 1.6 × 10 × 1.0 × 10 = 1.1 × 10–3 m s–1 = 1.1 mm s–1 (b) (i) At a temperature T, the thermal speed* of a copper atom of mass M is obtained from [<(1/2) Mv2 > = (3/2) kBT ] and is thus typically of the order of k B T/M , where kB is the Boltzmann constant. For copper at 300 K, this is about 2 × 102 m/s. This figure indicates the random vibrational speeds of copper atoms in a conductor. Note that the drift speed of electrons is much smaller, about 10–5 times the typical thermal speed at ordinary temperatures. (ii) An electric field travelling along the conductor has a speed of an electromagnetic wave, namely equal to 3.0 × 108 m s–1 EXAMPLE (You will learn about this in Chapter 8). The drift speed is, in comparison, extremely small; smaller by a factor of 10–11. 3.1 * See Eq. (12.23) of Chapter 12 from Class XI book. 87 Reprint 2025-26 Physics Example 3.2 (a) In Example 3.1, the electron drift speed is estimated to be only a few mm s–1 for currents in the range of a few amperes? How then is current established almost the instant a circuit is closed? (b) The electron drift arises due to the force experienced by electrons in the electric field inside the conductor. But force should cause acceleration. Why then do the electrons acquire a steady average drift speed? (c) If the electron drift speed is so small, and the electron’s charge is small, how can we still obtain large amounts of current in a conductor? (d) When electrons drift in a metal from lower to higher potential, does it mean that all the ‘free’ electrons of the metal are moving in the same direction? (e) Are the paths of electrons straight lines between successive collisions (with the positive ions of the metal) in the (i) absence of electric field, (ii) presence of electric field? Solution (a) Electric field is established throughout the circuit, almost instantly (with the speed of light) causing at every point a local electron drift. Establishment of a current does not have to wait for electrons from one end of the conductor travelling to the other end. However, it does take a little while for the current to reach its steady value. (b) Each ‘free’ electron does accelerate, increasing its drift speed until it collides with a positive ion of the metal. It loses its drift speed after collision but starts to accelerate and increases its drift speed again only to suffer a collision again and so on. On the average, therefore, electrons acquire only a drift speed. 3.2 (c) Simple,~1029 m–3.because the electron number density is enormous, (d) By no means. The drift velocity is superposed over the large random velocities of electrons. (e) In the absence of electric field, the paths are straight lines; in the EXAMPLE presence of electric field, the paths are, in general, curved. 3.5.1 Mobility As we have seen, conductivity arises from mobile charge carriers. In metals, these mobile charge carriers are electrons; in an ionised gas, they are electrons and positive charged ions; in an electrolyte, these can be both positive and negative ions. An important quantity is the mobility m defined as the magnitude of the drift velocity per unit electric field: | vd | µ= (3.24) E The SI unit of mobility is m2/Vs and is 104 of the mobility in practical units (cm2/Vs). Mobility is positive. From Eq. (3.17), we have e τ E 88 vd = m Reprint 2025-26 Current Electricity Hence, v d eτ µ= = (3.25) E m where t is the average collision time for electrons.