INTRODUCTION
CAPACITORS BASICS
CAPACITOR TYPES

Introduction to Capacitors

What is a Capacitor ?

the very basic definitions:

Capacitors are passive electrical components to store electric energy

A capacitor is made from electrical conductive electrodes that are separated by an insulator. The insulating layer is called a dielectric. Although all capacitors share the same basic principle components, the material choice, configurations and features can vary widely.

A capacitor is able to store energy in an electrostatic field that is generated by a potential difference across the conducting electrodes. So when an electrode is subject to a voltage, one plate of the capacitor will collect positive charge while the other will be negatively charged. The ratio of this electric charge and the potential difference (voltage) is called the capacitance and it is expressed in farads. The leaking current through the dielectric is called the leakage current.

Capacitors are common elements in electrical circuits with number of applications and different requirements such as:

The amazing fact about capacitors today is that they cover over 17 ranges ! of its main parameter – CAPACITANCE.

Capacitor technologies differ in features, range of electrical parameters covered. Lets start our course to learn some basics about them and what technologies are available today.

There are number of videos that you can find on YouTube etc. about basic introduction of capacitors and analogy with water etc. We would like to dig a little deeper during this course into how capacitor works, what are the physical mechanisms and background. Nevertheless, you can immerse into the capacitor world now to start watching this introduction video.

Optional video, 8 min

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