The unsteady magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) stagnation point flow of micropolar fluid across a vertical stretching surface with second-order velocity slip is the main concern of the present paper. The influence of electrical energy, temperature-dependent thermal conductivity, thermal radiation, Joule heating, and heat sink/source is investigated. The basic partial differential equations are changed into ordinary differential equations with the help of appropriate similarity variables and then solved by the fourth-order Runge-Kutta-based shooting technique. The impact of physical parameters on the velocity, microrotation, and temperature as well as friction factor, couple stress, and local Nusselt number is thoroughly explained with the support of graphs and tables. The results divulge that the heat source/sink and thermal radiation parameters have a propensity to enhance the fluid temperature. The distribution of velocity is an increasing function of an electric field and unsteadiness parameter. The numerical results are also compared with the results available in the literature. K E Y W O R D S electric field, free convection, heat transfer, stretching sheet, thermal radiation 1 | INTRODUCTION The boundary layer flow due to the stretching of a surface plays a pivotal role in the fields like biotechnology, pharmacy, and industrially. Some notable applications are wire drawing, cooling of metallic beds, plastic sheets extraction, production of polythene items, hot rolling, and so on. Those fluids which do not satisfy Newton's law of viscosity are called non-Newtonian fluids. The micropolar fluid is one special kind of non-Newtonian fluid. Currently, many researchers are interested in the exploration of non-Newtonian fluid flows across a stretching sheet due to their practical industrial demand. Toothpaste, body balms, mud, banana juice, toned milk, and surf water are some examples of non-Newtonian fluids. In 1964, Eringen 1 introduced micropolar fluid. Micropolar fluid flow induced by a stretchable surface was reported by Chiam. 2 Simultaneous solutions for the time-dependent mixed convective flow of micropolar fluid across a shrinking surface with heat and mass transfer attributes were reported by Sandeep and Sulochana. 3 A numerical exploration of the boundary layer flow of non-Newtonian fluid across a stretched surface with Lorentz force can be viewed in Ramachandran et al. 4-6 Turkyilmazoglu 7 examined in a study, the two-dimensional (2D) flow of an incompressible magnetohydrodynamic dusty fluid across a shrinking/stretching sheet in the presence of a porous medium and presented an analytical solution. Recently, Anantha Kumar et al 8 presented dual solutions for the time-dependent flow of Williamson shear-thickening liquid across a flat/curved stretched surface. It was conveyed that the Williamson liquid parameter has a proclivity to declaim the curves of the velocity.The investigation of the magnetic field has noteworthy applications in medicine, astrophysics, geology, and engineering. Magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) be...