Conduction current 2026-10-20
A conduction current is transport of electric charge by mobile carriers through matter. For a local isotropic ohmic medium, its current density is , with electrical conductivity . It differs from displacement current , which can be nonzero in a capacitor's insulating gap without carriers crossing the gap.
Choose the plate polarity so that the gap electric field points along when . Away from the plate edges, the quasistatic electromagnetic approximation gives . A circular Ampere-Maxwell law contour of radius then gives
It is displacement current, rather than a conduction current across the air, that supplies the enclosed current term. The direction follows the right-hand rule for increasing positive electric flux; it reverses every half cycle. In the ideal extension that sets the gap electric field to zero outside the plate footprint, for . That extension is an edge approximation, not an exact exterior solution for finite plates. Neglect fringing field of a capacitor and retardation, requiring and .