Capacitor and

capacitance
• A capacitor is a two-terminal electrical device that can store
energy in the form of an electric charge.

• It consists of two electrical conductors that are separated by

a distance.

• The space between the conductors may be filled by a

vacuum or with an insulating material known as a dielectric.

• The ability of the capacitor to store charges is known as

capacitance.

• Capacitors store energy by holding apart pairs of opposite

charges. The simplest design for a capacitor is a parallel
plate, which consists of two metal plates with a gap between
them.
In electronic devices, energy is typically stored whether in a
battery that stores energy in chemicals or in Capacitors, that
store energy in an electric field.

In either case, the stored energy creates an electric potential.

(One common name for that potential is voltage.) An electric
potential can drive a flow of electrons. Such a flow is called an
electric current. That current can be used to power electrical
components within a circuit.

Engineers choose to use a battery or capacitor based on the

circuit they’re designing and what they want that item to do. They
may even use a combination of batteries and capacitors. The
devices are not totally interchangeable.
 Battery Capacitor
Definition Battery stores potential energy in A Capacitor stores the potential
the form of chemical energy in the form of eclectic
energy which is later converted to field (electrostatic field) and
the electric energy. release to the circuit as electric
energy.
Construction Battery has three parts known as Capacitor is a simple two terminal
Cathode (positive (+ve), Anode device.Terminals are metallic plates
(Negative (-ve) and Separator and there is a dielectric material
(known as electrolyte). (insulator) between them.
Function Battery generates electrons and Capacitor only stores charged
charge. electrons.
Voltage A battery provides almost A Capacitor discharging voltage
Behavior constant voltage while quickly decreased. i.e. discharge
discharging. rate is very fast.
Charging The Charging and Discharging Charging and Discharging time of a
and time of a Battery is slow i.e. 10 – Capacitor is very fast i.e. 1-10
Discharging 60+ minutes. seconds.
Size For the same charging capacity, Capacitor size is large as compared
Battery size is small as compared to a battery for same capacity
to a capacitor rating.
Advantages and disadvantages

A battery can store thousands of times more energy than a capacitor having the same
volume. Batteries also can supply that energy in a steady, dependable stream. But
sometimes they can’t provide energy as quickly as it is needed.

Take, for example, the flashbulb in a camera. It needs a lot of energy in a very short
time to make a bright flash of light. So instead of a battery, the circuit in a flash
attachment uses a capacitor to store energy. That capacitor gets its energy from
batteries in a slow but steady flow. When the capacitor is fully charged, the flashbulb’s
“ready” light comes on. When a picture is taken, that capacitor releases its energy
quickly. Then, the capacitor begins to charge up again.

Since capacitors store their energy as an electric field rather than in chemicals that
undergo reactions, they can be recharged over and over again. They don’t lose the
capacity to hold a charge as batteries tend to do. Also, the materials used to make a
simple capacitor usually aren’t toxic. That means most capacitors can be tossed into
the trash when the devices they power are discarded.
A parallel-plate capacitor made up of two plates of area A
separated by a distance d. The charges on the facing plate
surfaces have the same magnitude q but opposite signs +q
and -q

The symbol we use to represent a capacitor ( ) is based on

the structure of a parallel-plate capacitor but is used for
capacitors of all geometries.
There is a potential difference between the two plates. The charge
q and the potential difference V for a capacitor are proportional to
each other; that is,

q=CV

The proportionality constant C is called the capacitance of the

capacitor.

Its value depends only on the geometry of the plates and not on
their charge or potential difference.

The capacitance is a measure of how much charge must be put on

the plates to produce a certain potential difference between them:
The greater the capacitance, the more charge is required.
The SI unit of capacitance is the coulomb per volt. This unit occurs so
often that it is given a special name, the farad (F), 1 F = 1 coulomb
per volt; microfarad (1 F = F) and the picofarad (1 pF = F) are more
convenient units.

On the basis of type of application, charge storing ability, and the form
of the dielectric material used to separate the conductor plates, a
capacitor can be subclassified into multiple categories such as a fixed
capacitor, variable capacitor, polarized capacitor, non-polarized
capacitor, electrolytic capacitor, paper capacitor, ceramic capacitor,
mica capacitors, etc.
 A Parallel-Plate Capacitor

We assume, as fig. suggests,

that the plates of our parallel-
plate capacitor are so large and
so close together that we can
take E to be constant
throughout the region between
the plates

Imp. note: the capacitance indeed depends only on geometrical

factors—namely, the plate area A and the plate separation d. Note
that C increases as we increase area A or decrease separation d
1. Calculate the capacitance of an empty parallel-plate capacitor with
metal plates with an area of 1.00 m2, separated by 1.00 mm.

2. A parallel-plate capacitor has circular plates of 8.20 cm radius and

1.30 mm separation. (a) Calculate the capacitance. (b) Find the
charge for a potential difference of 120 V.

3. An air-filled parallel-plate capacitor has plates of area 2.30cm 2

separated by 1.50mm.

(a) Find the value of its capacitance. The capacitor is connected to a

12.0−V battery.
(b) What is the charge on the capacitor?
(c) What is the magnitude of the uniform electric field between the
plates?
 A Cylindrical Capacitor

Figure a shows the cylindrical capacitor

including a hollow or a solid cylindrical
conductor surrounded by the concentric
hollow spherical cylinder, and fig. b is the
cross section of a cylindrical capacitor of
length l formed by two coaxial cylinders
of radii a and b. We assume that l b to
neglect fringing of electric field.

the capacitance of a cylindrical capacitor, like that of a parallel-plate

capacitor, depends only on geometrical factors, in this case the
length L and the two radii b and a,
 A Spherical Capacitor

Fig shows a capacitor that consists of two

concentric spherical shells, of radii a and
b. As a Gaussian surface, we draw a
sphere of radius r concentric with the two
shells.
4. The plates of a spherical capacitor have radii 38.0 mm and 40.0
mm. (a) Calculate the capacitance. (b) What must be the plate area
of a parallel-plate capacitor with the same plate separation and
capacitance?

5. What is the capacitance of a drop that results when two mercury

spheres, each of radius R 2.00 mm, merge?

6. A Cylindrical capacitor having a length of 8 cm is made of two

concentric rings with an inner radius of 3 cm and an outer radius of 6
cm. Find the capacitance of the capacitor.
 Energy stored in an electric field/capacitor

The electric field that builds up in the space between the plates has a direction that
tends to oppose further transfer. Thus, as charge accumulates on the capacitor
plates, you have to do increasingly larger amounts of work to transfer additional
electrons. This work is done by a battery, at the expense of its store of chemical
energy.
The work required to charge a capacitor is stored in the form of electric potential
energy U in the electric field between the plates.

hold no matter what the geometry of the capacitor is

 Grouping of capacitors

When there is a combination of capacitors in a circuit, we can sometimes replace

that combination with an equivalent capacitor—that is, a single capacitor that has
the same capacitance as the actual combination of capacitors.

• With such a replacement, we can simplify the circuit, affording easier solutions
for unknown quantities of the circuit.
 Capacitors in Series

Figure shows three capacitors connected in series to

battery B, maintaining a potential difference V. The
capacitors are wired serially, one after the other, and a
potential difference V is applied across the two ends of
the series. The potential differences that then exist
across the capacitors in the series produce identical
charges q on them.

Capacitors that are connected in series can be replaced with an equivalent

capacitor that has the same charge q and the same total potential difference V as
the actual series capacitors.

Figure shows the equivalent capacitor (with equivalent

capacitance Ceq) that has replaced the three actual
capacitors (with actual capacitances C1, C2, and C3)
 Capacitors in Parallel

Figure a shows an electric circuit in which three capacitors are connected in parallel to
battery B.

The capacitors are directly wired together at one plate and directly wired together at
the other plate, and the same potential difference V is applied across the two groups
of wired-together plates. Thus, each capacitor has the same potential difference V,
which produces charge on the capacitor.

Capacitors connected in parallel can be replaced with an equivalent capacitor that has
the same total charge q and the same potential difference V as the actual capacitors.

Figure b shows the equivalent capacitor (with equivalent

capacitance Ceq) that has replaced the three capacitors (with
actual capacitances C1, C2, and C3)
1. Find (a) the equivalent capacitance for the combination of capacitances
shown in Fig. a, across which potential difference V is applied.
(b) The potential difference applied to the input terminals in Fig. a is V 12.5 V.
What is the charge on C1? – 58.13333V
2. Two capacitors of capacitance C1 = 6 μ F and C2 = 3 μ F
are connected in series across a cell of emf 18 V.
Calculate:
(a) The equivalent capacitance
(b) The potential difference across each capacitor
(c) The charge on each capacitor
3. Find the equivalent capacitance between points A
and B. The capacitance of each capacitor is 2 μF
 Capacitor with a dielectric

If you fill the space between the plates of a

capacitor with a dielectric, which is an insulating
material such as mineral oil or plastic, the
capacitance increases by a numerical factor k,
which he called the dielectric constant of the
insulating material.

The dielectric constant of a vacuum is unity by

definition. Because air is mostly empty space, its
measured dielectric constant is slightly greater
than unity.

Even common paper can significantly increase

the capacitance of a capacitor, and some
materials, such as strontium titanate, can
increase the capacitance by more than two
orders of magnitude.
We put insulating material between the plates of a capacitor that has been charged
and then disconnected from the charging battery, as illustrated in Fig a. Because the
material is insulating, the charge cannot move through it from one plate to the other,
so the charge Q on the capacitor does not change.
An electric field exists between the plates of a charged capacitor, so the insulating
material becomes polarized, as shown in the left figure. An electrically insulating
material that becomes polarized in an electric field is called a dielectric.

Fig b. shows that the negative charge in the molecules in the material shifts to the
left, toward the positive charge of the capacitor. This shift is due to the electric field,
which applies a force to the left on the electrons in the molecules of the dielectric.
The right sides of the molecules are now missing a bit of negative charge, so their
net charge is positive.
Fig shows a macroscopic view of a dielectric in a charged capacitor. Notice that the
electric-field lines in the capacitor with the dielectric are spaced farther apart than the
electric-field lines in the capacitor with no dielectric. This means that the electric field
in the dielectric is weaker than the electric field in the capacitor with no dielectric.

The molecules in the dielectric act like tiny springs, and the energy in the electric
field goes into stretching these springs. With the electric field thus weakened, the
voltage difference between the two sides of the capacitor is smaller, so it becomes
easier to put more charge on the capacitor. Placing a dielectric in a capacitor before
charging it therefore allows more charge and potential energy to be stored in the
capacitor.
 A parallel plate with a dielectric has a capacitance
of

where κ (kappa) is a dimensionless constant called the dielectric constant.

Because κ is greater than 1 for dielectrics, the capacitance increases when a
dielectric is placed between the capacitor plates.

4. A typical flash for a point-and-shoot camera uses a capacitor of

about 200μF (a) If the potential difference between the capacitor plates
is 100 V—that is, 100 V is placed “across the capacitor,” how much
energy is stored in the capacitor? (b) If the dielectric used in the
capacitor were a 0.010-mm-thick sheet of nylon, what would be the
surface area of the capacitor plates? dielectric constant of nylon=3.4