A capacitor or condenser is a passive electronic component consisting of a pair of conductors separated by a dielectric. When a voltage potential difference occurs between the conductors, an electric field occurs in the insulator. This field can be used to store energy, to resonate with a signal, or to link electrical and mechanical forces. Capacitors are manufactured as electronic components for use in electrical circuits, but any two conductors linked by an electric field also display the fundamental property of capacitance. The effect is greatest between wide, flat, parallel, narrowly separated conductors.
An ideal capacitor is characterized by a single constant value, capacitance, the ratio of the amount of charge in each conductor to the potential difference between them. The unit of capacitance is thus coulombs per volt, or farads. Higher capacitance indicates that more charge may be stored at a given voltage. In practice, the insulator allows a small amount of current through, called leakage current, the conductors add an additional series resistance (specifically called equivalent series resistance), and the insulator has an electric field strength limit resulting in a breakdown voltage.
The properties of capacitors in a circuit may determine the resonant frequency and quality factor of a resonant circuit, power dissipation and operating frequency in a digital logic circuit, energy capacity in a high-power system, and many other important aspects.
Capacitors were discovered in glass jars in 1745 and have become ubiquitous within electronic and electrical systems. Electrolytic capacitors and supercapacitors are used to store small and larger amounts of energy, respectively, ceramic capacitors are often used in resonators, and parasitic capacitance occurs in circuits wherever the simple conductor-insulator-conductor sequence is formed unintentionally.
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