Elegant use of noise for quantum computing

Scientists around the world work hard to rinse quantum systems for noise, which may disturb the function of tomorrow's powerful quantum computers. Researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute (NBI) have found a way to use noise ...

Unconventional piezoelectricity in ferroelectric hafnia

Hafnium oxide thin films are a fascinating class of materials with robust ferroelectric properties in the nanometer range. While the ferroelectric behavior is extensively studied, results on piezoelectric effects have so ...

Super strong magnetic fields leave imprint on nuclear matter

A new analysis by the STAR collaboration at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), a particle collider at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory, provides the first direct evidence of the ...

14 parameters in one go: New instrument for optoelectronics

An HZB physicist has developed a new method for the comprehensive characterization of semiconductors in a single measurement. The "Constant Light-Induced Magneto-Transport (CLIMAT)" is based on the Hall effect and allows ...

Altermagnetism experimentally demonstrated

Ferromagnetism and antiferromagnetism have long been known to scientists as two classes of magnetic order of materials. Back in 2019, researchers at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) postulated a third class of magnetism, ...

page 1 from 40

Electric field

In physics, the space surrounding an electric charge or in the presence of a time-varying magnetic field has a property called an electric field. This electric field exerts a force on other electrically charged objects. The concept of an electric field was introduced by Michael Faraday.

The electric field is a vector field with SI units of newtons per coulomb (N C−1) or, equivalently, volts per metre (V m−1). The SI base units of the electric field are kg·m·s−3·A−1. The strength of the field at a given point is defined as the force that would be exerted on a positive test charge of +1 coulomb placed at that point; the direction of the field is given by the direction of that force. Electric fields contain electrical energy with energy density proportional to the square of the field intensity. The electric field is to charge as gravitational acceleration is to mass and force density is to volume.

A moving charge has not just an electric field but also a magnetic field, and in general the electric and magnetic fields are not completely separate phenomena; what one observer perceives as an electric field, another observer in a different frame of reference perceives as a mixture of electric and magnetic fields. For this reason, one speaks of "electromagnetism" or "electromagnetic fields." In quantum mechanics, disturbances in the electromagnetic fields are called photons, and the energy of photons is quantized.

This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA