Capacitors

Question 1

What is a CAPACITOR?

Answer 1

Two conductive parallel plates which have the ability to store charge.

Question 2

How do the TERMINALS IN CAPACITORS FORM?

Answer 2

1. Electrons move from one terminal to another.
2. Terminal with the deported electrons will be negatively charged and repel like charges, making the opposite terminal positively charged overall.
3. The size of the charges are equal and opposite because an equal amount of electrons are moved and deposited.

Question 3

How do CAPACITORS STORE CHARGE?

Answer 3

1. Dialectric (piece of insulative material) that slows down current inside and therefore charge.
2. Oppositely charged terminals want to attract each other, but the dialectric will store the charge by resisting current.

Question 4

What is TOTAL CAPACITANCE in SERIES and PARALLEL?

Answer 4

1/C total = 1/C + 1/C + 1/C in series.

C total = C + C + C in parallel

Question 5

What do Voltage and current graphs look like when DISCHARGING and CHARGING?

Answer 5

Charging:
* Voltage graph is has a logarithmic increase curve.
* Current graph has exponential decay.

Discharging:
* Voltage graph is exponential decay.
* Current graph is exponential decay.

Question 6

What is the sum of VOLTAGE in a CAPACITOR circuit with a RESISTOR sharing the VOLTAGE?

Answer 6

At any moment, V capacitor + V resistor = Vo

When capacitor is charging, voltage in resistor will experience exponential decay.

When capacitor is discharging, voltage in resistor will experience logarithmic increase.

Therefore, Vc = Vo(1-e^1/CR)

Question 7

What is CAPACITANCE?

Answer 7

Charge stored per unit potential difference.