CAPACITORS

WEEK FOUR
DATE: 14th February 2025 TIME: 2:00 PM- 5:00 PM
TOPIC 4
CAPACITORS
Expected Learning Outcomes
By the end of the lesson, the learner should be able to:
i) Define term capacitor.
ii) Explain how to charge and discharge a capacitor
iii) Discuss capacitance of a capacitor.
iv) Derive expressions for capacitance of different geometrical shapes

Introduction
Definition of a capacitor
 A capacitor is a device that stores electrical energy by accumulating electric
charges on two closely spaced surfaces that are insulated from each other.
 The capacitor was originally known as the condenser, a term still
encountered in a few compound names, such as the condenser microphone
 A capacitor consists of two overlapping conducting plates separated by an
insulator called the dielectric.
 The separation of the two plates is often very small.

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Fog. 1: Pictures of Capacitors

 The simplest capacitors are big plates of metal close to each other but not
touching. When connected to a pd (e.g. a battery), the battery tries to push
electrons through the wire away from its negative terminal.
 The diagram below shows the construction of capacitors:
dielectric

interleaved metal plates

interleaved metal plates connecting lead dielectric ©IKES08

 As the electrons (the charge) build up on the plate, two things happen:
1. The plate becomes more negative and so becomes less attractive to
the electrons following so the flow of electrons gradually reduces
which means the current gradually reduces.

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2. The electrons in the other plate are repelled by the build-up of electrons in
the first plate. So the electrons leaving the second plate complete the
circuit.

 If you plot a graph of the potential difference across the plates against
charge stored on the plate you find:

 As charge builds up, so does the pd across the plates (in a directly
proportional way). V is directly proportional to Q. Also, if V α Q then,
Q
. Constaant 
V
 We call the constant which relates the two, C, the capacitance because it is
‘the charge stored per unit pd across the plates’, i.e. the capacity of the
plates to store charge.
Q
C
V
i) Capacitor discharge
 The current falls away as it becomes less attractive for electrons to move to
the plate from battery.
 Charge builds up - quickly at first (a lot of electrons arriving each second)
and then more slowly.
 Voltage is proportional to charge, so the voltage - time graph is exactly
the same as the charge - time graph.
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 When the capacitor is fully charged, the pd across the plates will equal
the EMF of the cell charging it.

ii) Discharging capacitors

 If there is a large current due to the large pd across the plates. The current
drops as pd drops.
 Charge drops quickly at first due to the large current which is a large flow
of charge.
 As charge and therefore the pd across the plates drops, so the charge drops
more slowly.
 That means that their charge falls away in a similar way to the way in
which radioactive materials decay.

 The factor that governs how quickly the charge drops is a combination of
the capacitance of the capacitor and the resistance it is discharging
through.
Time _ Cons tan t  RC
where, R = the resistance and C = the capacitance of the circuit.

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 In practice it takes about 4 x RC for the charge to reach zero ‘ i.e. it takes 4
RC for the capacitor to discharge.
 To calculate the charge left, Q, on a capacitor after time, t, you need to use
the equation:
 t 
 
Q  Qe  RC 

where: Q0 = the initial charge on the capacitor; RC = the time constant

for the circuit.

Example: 1
 Consider the circuit shown:

 When the switch is in position A, the capacitor C gains a charge Q o so that

the pd across the capacitor Vo equals the battery EMF.
 When the switch is moved to position B, the discharge process begins.
 Suppose that at a time t, the charge has fallen to Q, the pd is V and there is
a current, I flowing as shown in figure above, then at this moment:
V
I
R
 In a short time dt, a charge equal to dQ flows from one plate to the other.
 so:
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dQ
I 
dt
[a minus sign show a reducing charge on the capacitor]
 So,
V dQ

R dt
 For the capacitor:
Q
V 
C
 So
Q dQ

CR dt
 Eliminating I and V leads to
 Q 
dQ   dt
 CR 
 Equation can be re-arranged as;
dQ  1 
  dt
Q  CR 
showing the constant ratio characteristic of an exponential change.
 We can write it as a differential equation:
dQ  1 
  Q
dt  CR 
 Solving this gives:
 t 
 
Q  Q0 e C

where Qo = CVo
 Current and voltage follow the same pattern hence it follows that;
 t 
 
I  I 0e  CR 

where Io = Vo / R so that;
 t 
 
V  V0 e  CR 

Time constant of a Capacitor

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 The meaning of time constant is the time taken by the capacitor to be

charged to about 63.2% of its full value through a resistor connected to it
in series.
 The RC time constant ( ) is the product of circuit resistance(R) and circuit
capacitance(C). =RC.
 A quantity known as the ‘time constant’ is commonly used when dealing
with capacitor discharge.
 Consider
 t 
 
Q  Q0e  CR 

when t = CR, we have

Q0
Q
e 1
i.e. this is the time when the charge has fallen to 1/e = 0.37 (about 1/3) of its
initial value,
 CR is known as the time constant – the larger it is, the longer the capacitor will
take to discharge.
 The relationship between the time constant and the ‘halving time’ T 1/2:
T1  ln 2  CR  0.69CR
2

T1/2 is the time taken for the charge to drop by half.

Example: 1
A capacitor which has an original charge of 100 Coulombs, so in time T1/2 this would
have dropped to 50. We get this as follows:

 Hence;
 t 
 
Q  Q0e  CR 

 So it becomes;

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50 = 100 x e- T1/2 /CR

ln50 – ln100 = - T1/2 /CR
ln100 - ln50 = T1/2 /CR
ln2 = T1/2 /CR
 so,
T1/2 = 0.69 x CR
Capacitance
 Capacitance is the electrical property of a capacitor and is the measure of a
capacitors ability to store an electrical charge onto its two plates with the
unit of capacitance being the Farad (abbreviated to F) named after the
British physicist Michael Faraday.
 Capacitance is defined as being that a capacitor has the capacitance of One
Farad when a charge of One Coulomb is stored on the plates by a voltage
of One volt.
 Note that capacitance, C is always positive in value and has no negative
units.
 A set of conductors can store electric charge and the net charge Q= 0 = q  q,
but the magnitude of charge on each conductor is |q|.
 This charge q is proportional to the potential difference between the
conductors:
q  CV V  V  V  V
q  CV
 The constant of proportionality between charge and potential difference is
C  capacitance. Unit is Farad (F)  Coulomb/Volt.
1 F = 106 F
1pF = 10 12 F
 To set up a potential difference between 2 conductors requires an electric
“pump”, such as a battery.
+ +q
V C
 q

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 A larger capacitance implies that a large charge q is stored for the same
potential difference V.
 Capacitance depends only on the geometry of conductors, not the charge q
or voltage V.

a) Parallel Plate Capacitor

 Consider the top view of the 2 plates:
d

+
V A


 Create a Gaussian surface (box) that extends inside and outside one of the
conductor surfaces.
 From Gauss’ Law
qenc
 E  dA 
Ñ
S 0
inside a conductor, E  0 ; so on left/right edges; E  dA  0 , on front
outside face only, E  0 .

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qenc
 E  dA  EA 
Ñ
S 0
 q   0 EA
 The electric potential difference between the 2 plates is given by:
+
E ds



V  V  V    E  ds E  ds   E ds opposite directions


V  E d
V
E
d
 So for parallel plates:
V  A
q   0 EA   0 A    0  V
d  d
q  C V
A C2
 C  0  0  8.85 10 12
 8.85 pF/m
d Nm 2
b) Cylindrical Capacitor (Cable)
 Let inner conductor have radius a, and outer radius b. Take Gaussian
surface as cylinder between conductors (E = 0 inside conductors).
qenc
 E  dA 
Ñ
S 0
 E 2 rL 0  q E  dA  0 on cylinder ends
q 1
E
2 0 L r

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
V  V  V    E  ds E  ds   E ds opposite directions, but ds  dr opposite again

 b b q dr
V    E dr   E dr  
 a a 2 0 L r
q b
V  ln
2 0 L a
 2 0 L 
q  V
 ln b / a 
2 0 L
C 
ln b / a

c) Spherical Capacitor
 Let inner sphere have radius a, and outer radius b. Take Gaussian surface
as sphere between conductors (E=0 inside conductors). From Gauss’ Law,
q
 E K ar b
r2

V  V  V    E  ds E  ds   E ds opposite directions, but ds  dr opposite again

 b b dr
V    E dr   E dr   Kq
 a a r2
b
 1 1 1
V  Kq     Kq   
 ra a b
 1 ab 
q  V
 K ba
1 ab
C 
K ba

Summary
 The amount of electrical charge that a capacitor can store on its plates is
known as its Capacitance value and depends upon three main factors.
 Surface Area
 the surface area, A of the two conductive plates which make up the
capacitor, the larger the area the greater the capacitance.

 Distance
 the distance, d between the two plates, the smaller the distance the
greater the capacitance.
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 Dielectric Material –
 the type of material which separates the two plates called the
“dielectric”, the higher the permittivity of the dielectric the greater
the capacitance.

Dielectric Material
 A capacitor consists of metal plates that do not touch each other but are
separated by a material called a dielectric.
 The dielectric of a capacitor can be air, or even a vacuum but is generally a
non-conducting insulating material, such as waxed paper, glass, mica
different types of plastics etc. T

Advantages of Dielectric material

 The dielectric provides the following advantages:
 The dielectric constant is the property of the dielectric material and
varies from one material to another increasing the capacitance by a
factor of k.
 The dielectric provides mechanical support between the two plates
allowing the plates to be closer together without touching.
 Permittivity of the dielectric increases the capacitance.
 The dielectric increases the maximum operating voltage compared to
air.

Applications of capacitors
Capacitors can be used in many different applications and circuits such
as blocking DC current while passing audio signals, pulses, or
alternating current, or other time varying wave forms.
This ability to block DC currents enables capacitors to be used to
smooth the output voltages of power supplies, to remove unwanted
spikes from signals that would otherwise tend to cause damage or false
triggering of semiconductors or digital components.
Capacitors can also be used to adjust the frequency response of an
audio circuit, or to couple together separate amplifier stages that must
be protected from the transmission of DC current.
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Example
A capacitor is constructed from two conductive metal plates 30cm x 50cm which are
spaced 6mm apart from each other, and uses dry air as its only dielectric material as
shown.

Calculate the capacitance of the capacitor.

Solution

STUDENT ACTIVITIES
Discuss how the geometrical shape of a capacitor affects its capacitance.

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