In an external electric field, they drift
against the direction of the field The positive ions made up of the nuclei
and the bound electrons remain held in their fixed positions In electrolytic
conductors, the charge carriers are both positive and negative ions; but
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the situation in this case is more involved – the movement of the charge
carriers is affected both by the external electric field as also by the
so-called chemical forces (see Chapter 3) We shall restrict our discussion
to metallic solid conductors