Question

Consider a rectangular conductor made out of silver with a thickness h = 2 mm. A magnetic field of 1 T is applied perpendicular to the conductor (in the direction of the thickness h) and we measure a Hall voltage VHall = 0.107 µV when a current of 2 A flows through the conductor. (a) Assuming that the charge carriers are electrons, estimate the density of charge carriers within the silver conductor. (b) Compare your estimated density of charge carriers in the conductor to the number of silver atoms per unit volume. [Hint: use the density of silver 10.5 g cm3 and the fact that a mole of silver weighs 108 g (recall that a mole of atoms corresponds to NA ≈ 6.022 × 1023 atoms!).] (c) How many electrons do you think each of the silver atoms is sharing communally with its neighbours?

Answer 1