- #1
Rolliet
- 18
- 1
Say you have a charged, parallel plate capacitor, isolated from any external circuit. If you were then to gradually separate the two plates (or thicken the dielectric) what would happen to the charge on the two plates ?
Crazymechanic said:If you think of a capacitor like that in a perfect vacuum (theoretical conditions) there is no where for the charge to go and just by separating the plates doesn't make the charge to vanish.
Indeed what you would get is a increase in charge strength because now the energy that was stored in the electric field goes back to the plates.A capacitor works by that as it stores energy in electric field , hence separating the plates further and further would diminish the field between the plates.
+ you are doing work on the plates as you are separating them.
A capacitor is an electronic component that is used to store electrical energy. It consists of two conductive plates separated by a dielectric material, and when a voltage is applied, one plate becomes positively charged while the other becomes negatively charged.
When a voltage is applied to a capacitor, it creates an electric field between the two plates. The positive charges on one plate are attracted to the negative charges on the other plate, causing the energy to be stored in the form of electrostatic potential energy.
If the plates of a charged capacitor are gradually separated, the electric field between them will weaken. As a result, the voltage across the capacitor will decrease, and the energy stored in the capacitor will also decrease. This process is known as discharging.
No, a capacitor cannot be fully discharged. Even when the plates are completely separated, there will still be a small amount of residual energy stored in the capacitor. This is because the dielectric material between the plates retains a small amount of charge.
The gradual separation of charged capacitor plates is used in various electronic devices, such as flashlights and camera flashes, to provide a sudden burst of energy. It is also used in circuits to regulate voltage and in power supplies to smooth out fluctuations in current.