Topic 10.6 Capacitors

Front

What is a parallel-plate capacitor?

Back

A parallel-plate capacitor consists of two separated parallel conducting surfaces that can hold equal amounts of charge with opposite signs.

Front

What does capacitance relate to?

Back

Capacitance relates the magnitude of the charge stored on each plate to the electric potential difference created by the separation of those charges.

Front

What does the capacitance of a capacitor depend on?

Back

The capacitance of a capacitor depends only on the physical properties of the capacitor, such as the capacitor’s shape and the material used to separate the plates.

Front

How is the capacitance of a parallel-plate capacitor related to its area and distance?

Back

The capacitance of a parallel-plate capacitor is proportional to the area of one of its plates and inversely proportional to the distance between its plates.

Front

What is the electric field like between two charged parallel plates?

Back

The electric field between two charged parallel plates with uniformly distributed electric charge is constant in both magnitude and direction, except near the edges of the plates.

Front

How can the magnitude of the electric field between two charged parallel plates be described?

Back

The magnitude of the electric field between two charged parallel plates can be described with a specific equation when the plate separation is much smaller than the dimensions of the plates.

Front

What happens to a charged particle between two oppositely charged parallel plates?

Back

A charged particle between two oppositely charged parallel plates undergoes constant acceleration and shares characteristics with the projectile motion of an object with mass in the gravitational field near Earth’s surface.

Front

What is the electric potential energy stored in a capacitor?

Back

The electric potential energy stored in a capacitor is equal to the work done by an external force to separate that amount of charge on the capacitor.

Front

How does adding a dielectric affect a capacitor?

Back

Adding a dielectric between two plates of a capacitor changes the capacitance of the capacitor and induces an electric field in the dielectric in the opposite direction to the field between the plates.