Courses
Courses for Kids
Free study material
Offline Centres
More
Store Icon
Store
seo-qna
SearchIcon
banner

What is meant by the term Quantization of charge?

Answer
VerifiedVerified
448.7k+ views
Hint: The charge can be always represented in the form of e.
Magnitude of $e=1.602\times {{10}^{-19}}C$.This is referred to as quantization of charge. SI unit of charge is given as Coulomb $\left( C \right)$. Quantization is generally ignored at macroscopic levels $\left( \mu C \right)$ because at that point, charges are considered to be continuous.

Complete step by step answer:
The quantization of electric charge is the characteristic because of which all free charges are integral multiples of the basic unit of charge of an electron or proton which are similarly indicated by $e$. The basic reason for quantization is that only an integral number of electrons can be transferred from one object to the other on rubbing. In macroscopic charges or in large scale charges, the charges are considered as large as compared to the magnitude of the electric charge. Therefore, the quantisation of electric charge is having no use on a macroscopic scale. Hence it is not taken into consideration and it is taken that electric charge is continuous. Quantization of charge means that charge can take up only particular discrete values. The generally observed value of electric charge, q, of a substance is the integral multiples of $e$.
$e=1.602\times {{10}^{-19}}C$
That means,
Charge of a particle can be written as,
$q=ne$
Where$n$be the number of particles taken, $e$ is the charge of one electron.
$n=0,1,2,3....$
Hence the term quantisation of charge is defined as per the question.

Note:
The type of quantization in which the quantization levels are not the same and generally the relation between them is logarithmic, is known as a non-uniform Quantization. There are two kinds of uniform quantization in general. They are given as mid-rise type and mid-tread type.