How to model connection wires in a circuit: From physical vector fields to circuit scalar

quantities
Guy A. E. Vandenbosch
Citation: American Journal of Physics 81, 676 (2013); doi: 10.1119/1.4812592
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How to model connection wires in a circuit: From physical vector fields

to circuit scalar quantities
Guy A. E. Vandenboscha)
Department of Electrical Engineering, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven,
Kasteelpark Arenberg 10, 3001 Leuven, Belgium

(Received 8 January 2013; accepted 14 June 2013)

Starting from the basic equations of electromagnetism, Maxwells equations, the concepts
of inductive coupling in a loop and capacitive coupling between two pieces of wire are
formally explained. Inductive coupling is linked to Faradays law and capacitive coupling to the
Ampere-Maxwell law. Capacitive coupling is also inherently linked to the phenomenon of surface
charges, which has been recently studied thoroughly in the literature, especially in static
situations. It is shown that, when applied to the connecting wires in a circuit at higher frequencies,
simple circuit theory must be significantly modified in order to take into account the effects of the
two types of coupling between the wires. VC 2013 American Association of Physics Teachers.
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1119/1.4812592]

I. INTRODUCTION

II. THE BASIC EQUATIONS

Inductive and capacitive coupling are among the most

basic concepts used in electronic circuit theory, taught in
circuit courses all over the world. In most textbooks, these
concepts are defined starting from the topology of the corresponding lumped components, the inductor and capacitor,
respectively.1,2 Moreover, in many curricula, this basic circuit course is scheduled in parallel with a course on electromagnetic fields, without really explaining the fundamental
links between the two. Although this approach is educationally sensible, unfortunately it does not give the student an
understanding of the deeper links between couplings in circuits and Maxwells fundamental laws. As long as traditional
low frequency topologies are involved, this shortcoming
does not pose any practical difficulty. However, at higher
frequencies things become more complicated.
Although the average engineer or physicist knows how to
solve an electronic circuit, many of them get into trouble
when they must consider such a circuit at higher frequencies.
The reason is that they are so used to applying circuit theory
that most of them forget that this theory yields only an approximate solution, and the higher the frequency, the worse
the approximation. In principle, the circuit theory solution is
only rigorously correct at zero frequency. Circuit theory
does not give an answer to questions such as: Does the shape
of a circuit loop affect the current through the loop? What is
the physical voltage drop over an inductor? Why does the
current follow the path of a conductor?
Because circuit theory is so easy to understand and to
work with, mainstream electronic engineering tries to take
into account the (small) deviations from circuit theory by
translating them into additional lumped elements in the
circuit, but it is essential to do this in the right way. In this
paper, the link between inductive and capacitive coupling,
Maxwells laws, and the modeling of connection wires is
analyzed thoroughly. The line of reasoning for capacitive
coupling is closely related to the lines of reasoning already
found in the literature.36 Here, this reasoning is extended to
the frequency domain. Limitations of circuit theory are also
described in the literature, but only concerning inductive
coupling.7 To the best of the authors knowledge, a general
discussion on these limitations, as described here, has not
been published previously.

All electromagnetic phenomena are described by

Maxwells laws. In time-harmonic situations (i.e., in the
frequency domain), these equations are

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Am. J. Phys. 81 (9), September 2013

http://aapt.org/ajp

r  E jxB;

(1)

r  B jxelE lJind lJs

jxe rlE lJs :

(2)

Here e is the permittivity, l the permeability, and r the

conductivity of the medium considered. Meanwhile,
J Jind Js is the electric volume current density, the sum
of an imposed source current Js and an Ohmic current
density Jind rE induced by the electric field in the conductor. The fields are thus generated by the source
current Js.
III. POTENTIAL AND VOLTAGE
The term potential can easily be introduced by analyzing Eq. (1) at zero frequency. At zero frequency, the righthand side is zero, so
r  E 0:

(3)

This means that the line integral of E over any closed loop
the circulation of Eis zero. A vector field, whose circulation is zero can be derived from a scalar function; thus, we
can write
E rU;

(4)

where U is called the electric potential. The difference

between the value of U at an arbitrary point (x,y,z) in space
and the value at some reference point is defined as the voltage at (x,y,z).
In principle, the solution of a problem obtained by working with potentials and voltages is rigorous only in static
cases, where the frequency is zero. In practice, the solution
remains very accurate as long as the dimensions of the structure under consideration are much smaller than a radiation
wavelength.
C 2013 American Association of Physics Teachers
V

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IV. INDUCTIVE COUPLING

Inductors are in fact used as a means to take into account
the right-hand side of Eq. (1). The idea is to keep on working
with potentials and voltages but to introduce a correction
representing this term. We start with the integral form of
Faradays law and rewrite it as

E  dC jx B  dS 0;
(5)
c

where S is an arbitrary surface in space and C is its boundary

curve. This equation says that the integral over a closed loop
does not equal zero but is related to the changing magnetic
flux through the loop. For an electronic circuit this means
that the voltage applied by the source is not completely compensated by the voltage drops over the lumped elements
in the circuit. In fact, this is a violation of Kirchhoffs voltage law.
The usual way to deal with this is to introduce additional
lumped elements, inductances, which account for this
closed-loop integral. The integral is thus represented by additional voltage drops over additional lumped elements (see
Fig. 1), and Eq. (5) translates into
Vs RI jx/tot 0; with /tot /inc /self ;

(6)
V. CAPACITIVE COUPLING

with /inc the incident flux due to other circuits, and /self the
flux generated through the loop of the circuit by the current
flowing through the circuit itself. (Note that B in Eq. (5) is
the total magnetic field, which is due both to the current in
the loop itself and to any other nearby currents.)
Using the well-known relation between current and flux,
Eq. (6) becomes
Vs  jxLinc Im R jxLself I;

and Lself the self inductance of the loop under consideration.

In textbooks, indeed, the concept of inductance in many
cases is explained starting from the lumped component
inductor, where the winding of the wire invokes a strong
concentration of the inductive effect at the inductor. From
these textbooks, it is hard to grasp the general nature and the
deep physical meaning of the inductive effect.
It has to be emphasized that the voltage drop over an
inductance is by no means a physical voltage drop, i.e., a
voltage drop to be calculated as the integral of the electric
field inside this lumped component. This explains an apparent paradox in circuit theory: how one can see a voltage
drop of jxLI over a component that is ideally made of perfectly conducting material, with electric field zero inside?
It also has to be emphasized that Eq. (5) does not provide
any information on where exactly in the loop an inductance
should be placed. In practice, the position of this additional
lumped element in the circuit always has to be chosen carefully so as not to make fundamental errors. In the case of a
single loop, the positioning of the inductance is arbitrary
(see Fig. 1).
Because the flux through a loop for a given current I
increases with increasing loop area, loop sizes are the main
determining factor when considering inductive coupling.

(7)

with Linc the mutual (incident) inductance between the other

circuit with current Im (for simplicity only one other circuit
loop is assumed, but the generalization is straightforward),

In circuit theory (at low frequencies), currents flowing in a

circuit are independent of the shape of the circuit and of the
surroundings of the circuit. They depend only on the lumped
components and on their connection topology. In this section, the proof of this very logical intuitive characteristic of a
circuit will be formally linked to Maxwells laws by analyzing the charge and current distribution in a circuit.
In any circuit, at least two media are of concern: a conducting medium 1, forming the circuit wires, and a nonconducting medium 2, surrounding the wires. The net current
and charge everywhere inside the volume of medium 2 are
zero (because it is non-conducting), and the current in medium 1 is induced. The charge in medium 1 can be analyzed
by taking the divergence of Eq. (2), where the volume source
density of electric current is set zero (there is no source current inside the wires):
r  r  B r  jxe rlE:

(8)

It is well known in vector calculus that the divergence of a

curl is always zero, so we have simply
r  jxe rlE 0:

(9)

Equation (9) is valid in both medium 1 and 2. Inside medium

1 this yields r  E1 0, because the permittivity, conductivity, and permeability are constants. Multiplying again by the
conductivity, we can write
r  r1 E1 r  J1 0;

Fig. 1. Principle of inductive coupling. Top: physical circuit with incident

flux generated by other circuits; bottom: circuit model including model for
the inductive effects of connection wires.
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Am. J. Phys., Vol. 81, No. 9, September 2013

(10)

which means that the current flowing into a small volume

inside medium 1 equals the current flowing out of this
volume. In other words, the volume charge distribution in
medium 1 (the conductor) equals zero. The only possible
charge is thus a surface charge distribution at the interface
between medium 1 and medium 2. Integration of Eq. (10)
Guy A. E. Vandenbosch

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over an elementary volume at the interface, as shown in

Fig. 2, yields
n  jxe1 r1 E1  jxe2 E2 0:

(11)

If medium 2 is a dielectric with zero conductivity, n is the

unit vector normal to the interface from medium 2 to medium 1. This can be written as
jxe1 r1
jxe1 r1
r1 E1n
J1n jxe2 E2n :
r1
r1

(12)

From Eq. (12), several properties can be easily derived, as

described in the following subsections.
A. Independence of a dc current on the circuit shape and
surroundings
At zero frequency, Eq. (12) yields
J1n 0;

(13)

which means that no current flows to the interface. The surface charge distribution at the interface is thus constant in
time, but not necessarily zero. Applying Eq. (10) in combination with Eq. (13) to a conducting wire segment of medium 1, we see that the entire current flowing into this
segment flows out of this segment at the other side. This
means that the current is constant along the length of the
wire. In other words, the charge has no effect on the amplitude of the current in medium 1. One can wonder, what is
the purpose of the charge distribution at the surface? This
question is best answered by considering the simplest possible circuit, a voltage source feeding a resistor (Fig. 3, top).
Here the (surface) charge distribution at the boundary of the
wire has two functions:

Inside the wireto point the electric field in a direction

parallel to the wire and with the proper magnitude, which
results in a current flowing in the proper direction inside
the wire in such a way that the current is conserved;
Outside the wireto generate the proper voltage drop
between the top wire and the bottom wire connecting
source and resistor. This voltage drop is VR Vs RIR.
The ratio between this voltage and the total charge (integrated surface charge distribution) on the top wire (Q)
and bottom wire (Q) gives rise to the definition of the
concept capacitance, as it is explained in classical
textbooks.

These roles of the surface charge have already been studied thoroughly, mainly in the electrostatic case. Interested
readers can find more information in the literature.35

Fig. 3. Principle of capacitive coupling. The charges deposited at the surfaces of the top and bottom conductors (top figure) are modeled by a capacitor
(bottom figure).

This surface charge distribution can be considered as consisting of two parts:

The average over the circumference of the cross section of

the wire, which by definition does not vary (spatially) over
this circumference. Its integral over the length of the top
and bottom wire yields Q and Q for the top and bottom
wire, respectively. It is this charge that is mainly responsible for producing the correct voltage drop between the
two wires;
The deviation with respect to this average, which does
show a spatial variation over the circumference of the
wires cross section. For simple cross-sectional shapes,
this part is essentially a dipole-type charge separation. The
integral of this part over the circumference is by definition
zero, so that it generates a negligible field outside the
wire. It just helps to point the electric field in the correct
direction inside the wire, with the correct magnitude.

The surface charge that has been built up at the interface

thus generates the force keeping the current within the wire,
pushing it in the right direction. Because this surface charge
distribution adapts itself automatically to the shape of the
circuit and the surroundings, as soon as dc equilibrium is
reached the current flowing in the circuit is independent of
the circuit shape and the surroundings, and always equals
IR Vs/R. Note that the distribution of the charge over the
surface may be quite complex.4,5 However, from a (quasi-)
static circuit point of view, only the total charge on the top
and bottom wires is important, and this can be calculated
from Q CVs.
B. Dependence of an ac current on the circuit shape and
surroundings
If the frequency does not equal zero, Eq. (12) can be
written as
J1n

Fig. 2. Relation between the two normal components of the electric field.
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Am. J. Phys., Vol. 81, No. 9, September 2013

jxe2 r1
E2n ;
jxe1 r1

(14)

which means there is a current to the interface proportional

to the field just external and normal to the interface. The
Guy A. E. Vandenbosch

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surface charge distribution is thus not constant in time. This

affects the current distribution in medium 1. Considering a
wire segment of medium 1, the current flowing into this segment partially flows out of this segment at the other side, and
partially flows to the surface of the segment. In what follows,
we will only consider cases where jxe1  r1 (for metals,
this is the case up to frequencies in the visible range),
yielding
J1n  jxe2 E2n :

(15)

The portion of the current flowing to the surface is determined by the electric field just outside and normal to the segment surface. Integrated over the circumference of the cross
sections and lengths of the top and bottom wire in Fig. 3, this
portion of the current also causes a change of the surface
charges Q and Q on these pieces of wire. In turn, the
change of these charges produces a change of the voltage
drop between the two pieces of wire. Assuming that the two
pieces of wire are still at potentials that are constant over
their volume, but vary now in time in the frequency domain,
this gives rise to the following analysis of the circuit. The
relation between current through R and voltage over R is
IR(t) VR(t)/R. Because the potential on the wires is constant
over their volume, this is also the voltage drop between the
wires, i.e., VR(t) Vs(t). This voltage is linked to a total
charge Q and Q, which takes care of the proper generation of electric field distribution between top and bottom
wires, with CVs(t) Q(t). Differentiating with respect to
time yields
C

dVs t dQt

IC t:
dt
dt

(16)

This last current is the current given in Eq. (15) integrated over the wire surfaces, flowing to or from these
surfaces within the top and bottom wire, respectively. In
fact, this is a violation of Kirchhoffs current law. The
usual way to deal with this is to introduce an additional
lumped element, a capacitor, that accounts for this change
in current (see Fig. 3). In textbooks, the concept of capacitance in many cases is explained starting from the lumped
component capacitor, where the small distance between
the capacitor surfaces results in a very strong concentration
of the capacitive effect at the capacitor. From these textbooks it is hard to grasp the general nature and the deep
physical meaning of the capacitive effect in circuits. The
current in Eq. (16) is thus identical to the current flowing to
a capacitor C. This C is the capacitance between the two
pieces of wire.
It is evident from this line of reasoning that any pair
of two conductors shows this capacitive phenomenon,
not only lumped capacitors. The only difference is the
magnitude of the capacitive couplingin lumped capacitors it is very large; between pieces of wire it is normally
small, as long as we are dealing with sufficiently low frequencies. The fundamental cause of capacitive coupling
is thus the necessary change in Q for a Vs changing in
time, since this Q is responsible for the correct voltage
drop (integrated electric field) between the top and
bottom wires.
It is well known that the value of C depends strongly
on the exact geometry of the top and bottom wires in this
specific simple circuit.
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Am. J. Phys., Vol. 81, No. 9, September 2013

VI. INDUCTIVE 1 CAPACITIVE COUPLING

In the previous sections, we have studied inductive and
capacitive coupling due to the connection wires in a circuit.
Inductive coupling is linked to Faradays law, capacitive
coupling to the Ampere-Maxwell law. The couplings are distributed effects and are not localized. The separation
between the two types of coupling was possible because we
made some approximations in comparison with reality.
While deriving the mechanism of inductive coupling, we
assumed that the current flowing through the loop is constant
along its length (Fig. 1). While deriving the mechanism of
capacitive coupling, we assumed that the voltage drop
between the two pieces of wire is constant, whatever the
integration path between the two wires (Fig. 3). These
assumptions are only rigorously true at zero frequency (for
static situations). In the time-harmonic regime, these
assumptions degrade with increasing frequency. Actually, it
is evident that in practice the two forms of coupling always
occur simultaneously. This complicates things considerably.
Consider the same circuit, a resistor R fed by a voltage Vs
(Fig. 1 top or Fig. 3 top). The impedance of this circuit, taking into account all couplings, is of course not just the resistor R, but is in general a function of frequency that can be
written as a Taylor series,
Zx R A1 x A2 x2 A3 x3    ;

(17)

where the coefficients A are uniquely determined by the geometry of the circuit, i.e., the actual sizes and shapes of the connection wires. The fundamental physical interpretation of the
impedance function is that it incorporates the causal wave
behavior of the electromagnetic field coupled back to the input.
It takes time for a signal to reach part of the circuit located farther away in space, to interact there with the local geometry of
the circuit (which depends on the local inductive and capacitive coupling there), and to travel back to the input. For sinusoidal oscillations, the distance relative to the wavelength
changes with frequency. This means that the phase delay of
any response increases with increasing frequency. Thus the
total impedance, which is a consequence of a superposition of
responses, each with its own phase delay in terms of electrical
distance, changes with frequency. In the low-frequency Taylor
series expansion of the impedance, higher order terms become
important with increasing frequency so they must be taken into
account. At dc, only the resistor is important.
We have seen that inductive and capacitive coupling can
be modeled by lumped elements L and C. The question now
is how to place these two elements when we know that the
two types of coupling always occur together. What is the
circuit topology? Is it as in Fig. 4(a) (top), as in Fig. 4(b)
(bottom), or something else?
The input impedances of the two circuits in Fig. 4 are (for
top and bottom, respectively)
Za parallel circuit of

1
and R jxL
jxC

R jxL
;
1 jxCR jxL

(18)

Zb parallel circuit of

1
and R; put in series with jxL
jxC

R
jxL:
1 jxCR

(19)

Guy A. E. Vandenbosch

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capacitive effects. The simplest step in this regard is to split

the inductor and/or capacitor in two, as in Fig. 5. Note that in
the top figure, the capacitor is not really split up, and in the
bottom figure the inductor is not really split up.
The same procedure can be followed to calculate the input
impedances of these circuits as for the circuits in Fig. 4. The
calculation is lengthy, but straightforward. The results are
Za R jxL  R2 C x2 R2L2R C  R2 C2 ;

(22)

Zb R jxL  R2 C x2 R2LC2s  R2 C2 ;

(23)

L L2s L2R ;

(24)

C C2s C2R :

(25)

with

Fig. 4. Simultaneous inductive and capacitive coupling. Which is the correct

model: top (a) or bottom (b)?

Expressed as a Taylor series around frequency zero, using

the expression 1=1  x 1 x x2   , we obtain
Za R jxL  R2 C x2 RC2L  R2 C    ;

(20)

Zb R jxL  R2 C x2 RCR2 C    :

(21)

As we can see, the first two terms are identical, implying that
inductive and capacitive effects originating from the connection wires in a circuit can be taken into account in circuit
theory to the first order by simply introducing the corresponding global inductor in series and capacitor in parallel,
no matter where they are located. Global here refers to the
total loop of the circuit, and the total capacitance between
the top and bottom wire. If the global inductance and capacitance are correctly introduced, it can be proven that the
correct coefficient A1 is obtained. The proof is beyond the
scope of this paper.
Equations (20) and (21) provide us with a criterion to
judge whether inductive or capacitive coupling is more
important. In the case L=R  RC, inductive coupling is
more important; in case L=R  RC, capacitive coupling is
more important (in this simple circuit). It is seen that this
criterion depends on the load R, not only on the geometry of
the circuit, which is reflected in L and C. This illustrates a
very well-known fact: in high-impedance circuits, mainly
capacitive coupling has to be taken into accountcoupling
as a consequence of charge distributions; in low-impedance
circuits, mainly inductive coupling has to be taken into
accountcoupling as a consequence of current distributions.
However, as soon as the distributed nature over the connection wires itself starts to be important, this simple correction procedure also degrades. In general, neither of the two
models of Fig. 4 provides the correct second-order term.
Fundamentally they are both wrong. The reason is that the
correct treatment would depend on the exact geometry of the
circuit in space. The actual proof, based on a rigorous vector
field analysis, is very advanced and also beyond the scope of
this paper. However, a revealing glimpse can be given, first
from a mathematical point of view, then from a physical
point of view.
How to obtain the second-order term from a mathematical
point of view? It can be reconstructed by taking into account
explicitly the distributed nature of the inductive and
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Am. J. Phys., Vol. 81, No. 9, September 2013

First of all, note that the first-order terms are identical to

those in Eqs. (20) and (21). It can be proven that this is a
direct consequence of Eqs. (24) and (25). Since for a given
circuit the second-order behavior is (of course) uniquely
determined, it is seen that the splitting up of L and C cannot
be done freely. Equations (17), (22), and (23) are identical to
the second order when
R2L2R C  R2 C2 R2LC2S  R2 C2 A2 ;

(26)

which is equivalent to
L2R C2s C2R L2s L2R C2s
A2 =R R2 C2 =2

(27)

and
L2R C2R L2s C2s :

(28)

So the conclusion is that the circuit approximation can be

made accurate up to the second order, basically by splitting
up the inductor or the capacitor. Note that from a

Fig. 5. Models accurate up to second order, in order to model more accurately the distributed character of inductive and capacitive coupling. Top:
with the inductance split in two; bottom: with the capacitor split in two.
Guy A. E. Vandenbosch

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A splitting based on physical insight is intrinsically better

than a purely mathematical one, because it automatically
delivers coefficients for higher orders that are closer to the
real valuessomething that is not guaranteed by the purely
mathematical approach.
The basic technique of splitting up the inductor and capacitor, which has been demonstrated here to the second order,
can be extended to higher orders for increased accuracy.
Again, the proof is advanced and beyond the scope of this
paper.
In essence, circuit theory is able to take into account the
effect of the connection wires in a circuit by distributing the
inductive and capacitive couplings over several inductors
and capacitors. The higher the order of accuracy required,
the more inductors and capacitors are needed.
VII. CONCLUSION
Fig. 6. Two distinct geometries for the basic circuit considered.

mathematical point of view, either the inductor or the capacitor can be split; it is formally always possible to get the
correct second-order behavior.
Now let us ask the interesting question, how is this
splitting linked to the physical geometry of the circuit? The
connection can be illustrated by considering two distinct
geometries, shown in Fig. 6.
For the top circuit in Fig. 6, because the two wires come
very close to each other in the middle, the effect of the
capacitive coupling tends to dominate over the inductive
effect. It is logical to consider Fig. 5(a) as the correct physical model for this situation. In many cases, if the two remaining loops at the left and right of the capacitor are sufficiently
small, the inductive effect can even be completely neglected.
For the bottom circuit in Fig. 6, the wires are far apart in
the middle, making the capacitive coupling small there. The
main contributions to capacitive coupling are found near the
voltage source and the resistor. Also, the larger distance
between the wires automatically increases the loop area. It is
therefore logical to consider Fig. 5(b) as the correct physical
model for this situation.

681

Am. J. Phys., Vol. 81, No. 9, September 2013

In this paper, the basics of inductive and capacitive coupling have been reviewed in the frequency domain. This is
done from a physical point of view, explaining the nature of
these phenomena, rather than consistently using rigorous
mathematical formulations. It is shown that inductive and
capacitive coupling are distributed phenomena, not necessarily linked to physical lumped components. If not properly
modeled, these effects cause the two basic laws of circuit
theory, Kirchoffs current and voltage laws, to break down at
higher frequencies.
a)

Electronic mail: guy.vandenbosch@esat.kuleuven.be

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1

Guy A. E. Vandenbosch

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