Electric potential is amount of work required to move a unit charge from a reference point or surface to a specified point in an electric field. Accordingly, the energy possessed by a charged particle is due to its position with respect to the electric field. Electric potential is a scalar quantity and can result from the introduction of a particle into an electric field produced by a source of potential difference such as a battery, or by another nearby charged particle.

Electric potential can be compared to the gravitational potential energy of an object in a gravitational field. Just as the gravitational field results in a force on an object with mass or momentum, an electrical field results in a force upon a charge. The work done by the electric field depends only on the initial and final positions of the object, not the path followed...