CAPACITANCE A2

CAPACITORS AND CAPACITANCE

Objective: Define capacitance, as applied to both isolated spherical conductors and to parallel plate
capacitors

1. Capacitors is a device designed to store charge.

2. There are many types of capacitors:

3. The symbol for capacitor is shown below:

4. It is made up of two parallel metal plates and an insulating material called dielectric.
5. The plates are made up of conductive material: aluminium, silver and other metals.
6. The dielectric is made up of an insulating materials such as paper, glass, rubber, ceramic, plastic, etc.
7. The dielectric is used to impede the flow of current.

8. Capacitors are polarised.

9. This means that they have a positive pin and a negative pin.
10. The negative pin is usually identified with a ‘−’ marking and a coloured strip on the case.
11. The leg of the negative terminal may also be slightly shorter as another indication.
12. With high potential difference, the insulator may break down so capacitors are also marked with their
maximum p.d.

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13. If the voltage is applied in reverse, they will make a pop and burst open and fail permanently.
14. After popping a capacitor, it will behave as a short circuit.

15. When the plates are connected to a battery; electrons from the negative terminal flow onto one of the
plates.
16. NB: Recall that convention is that current is the flow of positive charge. Here, it is free electrons that
flow. Electrons are negatively charged, the conventional current flows in the opposite direction to the
electrons.

17. An equal amount of electrons leave the other plate to return to the battery via the positive terminal.
18. So each plate gains and equal and opposite charge.

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19. When we say that the charge stored by the capacitor is Q, we mean that one conductor has charge +Q
and the other has charge −Q.
20. Unit for capacitance is Farad [F].
21. 1 F = 1 C V−1
22. Be careful not to confuse between ‘C’ used for capacitance and coulomb.
23. Capacitance is a very large capacitance and most capacitors tend to be in the microfarad (µF),
nanofarads (nF) and picofarads (pF) region.

24. Definition for capacitance: Charge per unit potential difference.

25. Formula for capacitance: C = Q/V
26. Common uses of capacitors: camera flashes, audio equipment, cardia defibrillators.

Objective: Recall and use C = Q/V

1. Calculate the charge on a 220 µF capacitor charged up to a 15 V. Give your answer in microcoulombs
(µC) and in coulombs (C)
2. A charge of 1.0 x 10−3 C is measured on a capacitor with a potential difference across it of 500 V.
Calculate the capacitance in farads (F), microfarads (µF) and picofarads (pF).
3. Calculate the average current required to charge a 50 µF capacitor to a p.d. of 10 V in a time interval of
0.01 s.

Objective: Derive, using C = Q/V , formulae for the combined capacitance of capacitors in series and in
parallel

1. Capacitors in series:

a.
b. Recall that for series circuit, the total potential difference in the circuit above is the sum of
potential differences across capacitors C1 and C2; i.e. V1 and V2 respectively.
c. Vtotal= V1 +V2
d. Recall the formula C = Q/V and determine the potential differences V1 and V2 in terms of C1, C2,
q1 and q2
e. Potential difference across capacitor C1: V1 = q1 / C1
f. Potential difference across capacitor C2: V2 = q2 / C2
g. Compare the 2 equations: Vtotal= qtotal / Ctotal and Vtotal= V1 +V2
h. qtotal / Ctotal = q1 / C1 + q2 / C2
i. In series circuit, the current flowing through both capacitors is the same. Therefore, the charges
q1 and q2 are equal. qtotal = q1 = q2
𝟏 𝟏
j. = 𝟏 𝟏
𝑪𝒕𝒐𝒕𝒂𝒍 +
𝑪𝟏 𝑪𝟐

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 𝑪𝟏 𝑪𝟐
k. Rearranging to make Ctotal as the subject: 𝑪𝒕𝒐𝒕𝒂𝒍 =
𝑪𝟏 +𝑪𝟐
2. Capacitors in parallel.

a.
b. Recall that for a parallel circuit, the potential difference across the components is all the
same.
c. Vtotal= V1 = V2
d. Recall total current is the sum of the individual currents passing through each component.
e. qtotal= q1 + q2
f. Potential difference across capacitor C1 : : V1 = q1 / C1
g. Potential difference across capacitor C2: V2 = q2 / C2
h. qtotal= Vtotal x Ctotal
i. Vtotal x Ctotal = V1 x C1 + V2 x C2
j. Since Vtotal= V1 = V2 , therefore Ctotal= C1 + C2

Objective: Use the capacitance formulae for capacitors in series and in parallel

4. Calculate the overall capacitance when 3 capacitors of magnitude 1F, 4F and 6 F are connected in
parallel.
5. Calculate the charge across the capacitor of capacitance 4F. When there are 2 capacitors of capacitance
2F and 4F are connected in parallel across the voltage of 100V.
6. The overall capacitance is always _______________ than the individual capacitance values when
capacitors are connected in parallel.
7. Two capacitors of capacitance C1 = 6µF and C2 = 3µF are connected in series across a cell of emf 18 V.
Calculate:
a. Equivalent capacitance
b. The potential difference across each capacitor
c. The charge on each capacitor
8. Find the equivalent capacitance between points A and B. The capacitance of each capacitor is 2µF.

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ENERGY STORED IN A CAPACITOR

Objective: Determine the electric potential energy stored in a capacitor from the area under the
potential – charge graph

1. Charged capacitor stores charge. The charges on the plates are equal and opposite. So there is no
resultant charge. Energy is stored in the capacitor due to the charge separations.
2. Energy stored is in the form of electric potential energy.
3. Charging a capacitor:

a.
b. Work must be done to push electrons onto one plate and off the other.
c. At first, there is only a small amount of negative charge on the left hand plate.
d. Adding more electrons is easy as there is little repulsion.
e. As the charge on the plate increases, the repulsion increases. Therefore a greater amount of
work must be done to increase the charge on the plate.
4. The graph below shows the graph of potential difference against charge for a capacitor:

5. Area under the graph = energy stored = ½ QV

6. Potential difference is directly proportional to charge. This is demonstrated by the straight diagonal
line on the graph.
𝟏 𝑸𝟐
7. As Q = CV, Energy stored in capactior = 𝑪𝑽𝟐 =
𝟐 𝟐𝑪

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8. Graph of Electric potential energy against V2. Gradient = C/2

9. Graph of electric potential energy against Q2. Gradient = ½ C

10. The graph below shows the energy required to drive a charge through a resistor

11. The work done W in moving charge Q through a constant p.d. V. This is given by W = QV

Objective: Recall and use W = ½ QV = ½ CV2

1. A capacitor of capacitance 1.2 µF requires a potential difference of 50 kV to fully charge. How much
electric potential energy does it store when fully charged?
2. The charge on a capacitor is 3 µC when the potential difference is 150 kV. Calculate the electric potential
energy of the capacitor.
3. Consider the circuit below. If the voltage drop across C2 is 5V , what is the total energy stored in C2 and
C3. If C1 = 5F, C2 = 7F and C3 = 1F.

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4. A 15 µF capacitor is connected to a 9V battery. Once the capacitor is fully charged, how much energy is
stored?

Charge of isolated bodies

1. All bodies have capacitance.

2. Consider a conducting sphere of radius r insulated from its surroundings and carrying a charge Q it will
have a potential at its surface of V, where

3. Since C = Q / V , it follows that the capacitance of a sphere is:

DISCHARGING A CAPACITOR

Objective: Analyse graphs of the variation with time of potential difference, charge and current for a
capacitor discharging through a resistor.

1. In figure below, the capacitor is charged by the battery when the switch is connected to terminal P.
When first connected to P, a current is observed in the microammeter. The current starts off quite large
and gradually decreases to zero.

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2. When connected to terminal Q, the capacitor discharges through the resistor and a current in the
opposite direction is observed. As with the previous current, it starts off large and gradually falls to zero.
3. The graph below shows how the current changes with time when a capacitor discharges through a
resistor.

4. As charge flows off the capacitor, the potential difference reduces and so the current (the charge flowing
per unit time) in the circuit also decreases.
5. This graph shows an exponential decay.

Objective: Recall and use τ = RC for the time constant for a capacitor discharging through a resistor.

1. What is the effect of changing the resistance in the circuit? There will be no change in the initial
potential difference across the capacitor, but the initial current through the resistor will be changed.
a. Increases resistance will mean decreased current, so charge flows off the capacitor plates
more slowly and therefore, the capacitor will take longer to discharge.
b. Conversely, decreasing the resistance will case the capacitor to discharge more quickly.
2. What is the effect of increasing the capacitance of the capacitor? The initial p.d. across the capacitor
is again, unchanged.
a. So, with an unchanged resistance, the initial current will be unchanged. However, there will be
more charge on the capacitor and so it will take a longer time to discharge.
3. From this we can see that the time take for a capacitor to discharge depends on both the capacitance
and the resistance in the circuit.
4. Time constant: τ = RC
5. RC time constant is a measure that helps us to figure out how long it will take a capacitor to charge to a
certain voltage level.

Objective: Use equations of the form x = x0 e-(t/ RC) where x could represent current, charge or potential
difference for a capacitor discharging through a resistor.

1. The equation for the exponential decay is in the form of x = x0 e-(t/ RC)
2. The equation for the exponential decay of current on a capacitor is: I = I0 e-(t/ RC) , where I is the current, I0
is the initial current, t is time and RC is the time constant.
3. The current at any time is directly proportional to the potential difference across the capacitor, which
in turn is directly proportional to the charge across the plate.
4. The equation for potential difference: V = V0 e-(t/ RC) where V is the p.d., V0 is the initial p.d., t is time and
RC is the time constant.
5. The equation for charge: Q = Q0 e-(t/ RC) where Q is the charge, Q0 is the initial charge, t is time and RC is
the time constant.

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Comparing resistors and capacitors