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Lecture

Capacitance and Dielectrics: Blended Learning Q&A Session

In course

PHYS-201(d): General physics: electromagnetism

The topics covered by the course are concepts of electromagnetism, properties of waves, and fluid mechanics. ...

Description

This lecture covers the concepts of capacitance and dielectrics, discussing how inserting a dielectric affects capacitance and electric field, the maximum amount of bound charges in a dielectric, and energy storage in different bodies. The session includes a Q&A on practical scenarios involving plate capacitors and dielectrics.

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Instructor

Dirk Grundler

Official source

Ontological neighbourhood

Physics

Electromagnetism: Electrostatics

Related concepts (32)

Capacitor types

Capacitors are manufactured in many styles, forms, dimensions, and from a large variety of materials. They all contain at least two electrical conductors, called plates, separated by an insulating layer (dielectric). Capacitors are widely used as parts of electrical circuits in many common electrical devices. Capacitors, together with resistors and inductors, belong to the group of passive components in electronic equipment.

Tantalum capacitor

A tantalum electrolytic capacitor is an electrolytic capacitor, a passive component of electronic circuits. It consists of a pellet of porous tantalum metal as an anode, covered by an insulating oxide layer that forms the dielectric, surrounded by liquid or solid electrolyte as a cathode. Because of its very thin and relatively high permittivity dielectric layer, the tantalum capacitor distinguishes itself from other conventional and electrolytic capacitors in having high capacitance per volume (high volumetric efficiency) and lower weight.

Electrolytic capacitor

An electrolytic capacitor is a polarized capacitor whose anode or positive plate is made of a metal that forms an insulating oxide layer through anodization. This oxide layer acts as the dielectric of the capacitor. A solid, liquid, or gel electrolyte covers the surface of this oxide layer, serving as the cathode or negative plate of the capacitor. Because of their very thin dielectric oxide layer and enlarged anode surface, electrolytic capacitors have a much higher capacitance-voltage (CV) product per unit volume than ceramic capacitors or film capacitors, and so can have large capacitance values.

Film capacitor

Film capacitors, plastic film capacitors, film dielectric capacitors, or polymer film capacitors, generically called film caps as well as power film capacitors, are electrical capacitors with an insulating plastic film as the dielectric, sometimes combined with paper as carrier of the electrodes. The dielectric films, depending on the desired dielectric strength, are drawn in a special process to an extremely thin thickness, and are then provided with electrodes.

Applications of capacitors

Capacitors have many uses in electronic and electrical systems. They are so ubiquitous that it is rare that an electrical product does not include at least one for some purpose. Capacitors allow only AC signals to pass when they are charged blocking DC signals. The main components of filters are capacitors. Capacitors have the ability to connect one circuit segment to another. Capacitors are used by Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) devices to represent binary information as bits.

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