Experiment 7

Capacitors
PURPOSE
In this experiment, you will investigate fundamental properties of capacitors, which is a device
that stores charge (energy) and you will study capacitors connected in series and in parallel.

THEORY
A capacitor is a device that stores electrical energy in an electric field. A capacitor consists of
two parallel isolated conductors (the plates) with charges +q and -q. The charge of the capacitor
C is given by:

q=CV (1)

Where V is the potential difference between the plates. The capacitance of the parallel-plates
capacitor is calculated using:
ε0 A
C= (2)
d

where  is the relative permittivity of the dielectric material between the plates, 0 = 8.85×10-12
Fm-1 is the vacuum permittivity, A is the area of the plates, and d is the separation between the
plates. The electric field magnitude between the parallel plates of the capacitor is given by:

V
E= (3)
d
The electric potential energy U of a charged capacitor is given by:

q2 1 2
U= or U = C V (4)
2C 2

The equivalent capacitor Ceq of n capacitors in parallel is given by:

n
C eq=∑ Ci (5)
i=1

The equivalent capacitor Ceq of n capacitors in series is given by:

n
1 1
=∑ ( 6)
Ceq i=1 C i

EXPERIMENTAL SETUP
One or more parallel plate capacitor(s); Battery; Voltmeter and two probes; Dielectric: Teflon,
Paper, Glass and custom (with adjustable dielectric constant).

PROCEDURE
In this experiment, you will investigate the fundamental properties of a parallel plate capacitor.
You should run the simulation from the site below:
https://phet.colorado.edu/en/simulation/legacy/capacitor-lab

1. Charging a Capacitor
In this part, you will be using a capacitor with air as a dielectric ( = 1.000).
- Disconnect the battery (click on the control Disconnect Battery).
- Check all the boxes including Capacitance, Plate Charges, Storage Energy, Electric field lines
and Voltmeter.
- Attach the red probe (positive) of the voltmeter to the connector attached to the positive
terminal of the battery and the black probe (common) to the connector attached to the negative
terminal of the battery.
- Slide the slider on the battery to have a maximum voltage of +1.5 V, verified by the voltmeter
reading.
- Connect the battery (click on the box labeled Disconnect Battery).
- You should see the picture shown in Figure 2.
Note: If your meter bars are saturated (maximum reading), click on to scale them back.

Figure 1

- For the plate separation of 7.0 mm and the capacitor plate area of 100.0 mm2, record the
measured values of voltage, capacitance, plate charge, and stored energy in the table below.

Plate Calculated
Area A
Separation Capacitance Voltage |V| Charge | Electric Field Energy
(mm2)
d (mm) C (pF) (V) Q| (pC) |E| (V/m) U (pJ)
100.0 6.9 0.129 1.5 0.193 217.39 0.145
Table 1
2. Changing Capacitor Area
In this part, you will be using a capacitor with air as a dielectric ( = 1.000).
- Slide the slider on the battery to have a maximum voltage of +1.5 V, verified by the voltmeter
reading.
- Check all the boxes including Capacitance, Plate Charges, Storage Energy, Electric field lines
and Voltmeter.
- Fix the separation between the plates to 6.0 mm
- Slowly increase the area of the plates by dragging the little double arrow away from the plates.
The range of area is between 100 and 400 mm2.
- Make sure that the voltmeter probes stay connected to the wires as shown in Figure 1.
- Fill your results in the table 2.

Plate Calculated
Area A
Separation Capacitance Voltage | Charge | Electric Field | Energy
(mm2)
d (mm) C (pF) V| (V) Q| (pC) E| (V/m) U (pJ)
100.0 6.0 0.147 1.5 0.221 250 0.166
191.6 6.0 0.282 1.5 0.423 250 0.317
281.7 6.0 0.415 1.5 0.622 250 0.467
369.3 6.0 0.544 1.5 0.815 250 0.612
Table 2

- Discuss your observations on the change of capacitance, charge, potential energy, and
calculated electric field magnitude with increasing capacitor plate area.
As we increase the Area, Capacitance is increasing, charge is constant, potential energy is
increasing, electrical field is constant.

3. Changing Capacitor Plate Separation

In this part, you will be using a capacitor with air as a dielectric ( = 1.000).
- Slide the slider on the battery to have a maximum voltage of +1.5 V, verified by the voltmeter
reading.
- Check all the boxes including Capacitance, Plate Charges, Storage Energy, Electric field lines
and Voltmeter.
- Fix the area of the plates as per your instructor recommendation (range of area is between 100
and 400 mm2).
- Slowly change the separation between the plates by dragging the little double arrow down (or
up). The range of plate separation is between 5 and 10 mm.
- Make sure that the voltmeter probes stay connected to the wires as shown in Figure 1.
- Fill you results in the table 3 below.

Plate Calculated
Area A
Separation Capacitance Voltage | Charge | Electric Field | Energy
(mm2)
d (mm) C (pF) V| (V) Q| (pC) E| (V/m) U (pJ)
206 5.1 0.354 1.5 0.531 294.11 0.399
206 6.0 0.303 1.5 0.455 250 0.341
206 7.9 0.230 1.5 0.345 189.87 0.259
206 10 0.182 1.5 0.274 150 0.205
Table 3
- Discuss your observations on the change of capacitance, charge, potential energy, and
calculated electric field magnitude with increasing plate separation.
As we increase the separation, Capacitance is decreasing, charge is constant, potential
energy is decreasing, electrical field is decreasing.
4. Changing the Dielectric Material
- Click on the Dielectric tab to switch to another window as shown in Figure 2. In this part, you
will be using a dielectric material including Teflon, glass, paper or custom with dielectric
constant between 1 and 5.

Figure 2

-Slide the slider on the battery to have a maximum voltage of +1.5 V, verified by the voltmeter
reading.
- Check all the boxes including Capacitance, Plate Charges, Storage Energy, Electric field lines
and Voltmeter.
- Fix the area of the plates as per your instructor recommendation (range of area is between 100
and 400 mm2).
- Fix the separation between the plates as per your instructor recommendation, in the range
between 5 and 10 mm.
- Select the dielectric as per your instructor recommendation (Custom, Teflon, Paper, Glass).
- Insert the dielectric all the way between the plates by dragging the little double arrow to the left
(labeled offset) as shown in Figure 2.
- Fill your results in table 4 below.

Calculated
Area Dielectric Voltag
Separation Dielectric Capacitance Charge Electric U (pJ)
A Constant e |V|
d (mm) Material C (pF) |Q| (pC) Field |E| Energy
(mm2)  (V)
(V/m)
400 5 Custom (air) 1.0 0.708 1.5 1.62 300 0.797
400 5 Teflon 2.1 1.098 1.5 1.647 300 1.235
400 5 Paper 3.5 1.594 1.5 2.391 300 1.793
400 5 Glass 4.7 2.019 1.5 3.028 300 2.271
Table 4
- Discuss your observations on the change of capacitance, charge, potential energy, and
calculated electric field magnitude with increasing dielectric constant.
As we increase the dielectric constant, Capacitance is increasing, charge is constant,
potential energy is increasing, electrical field is increasing.

5. Capacitors Connected in Series

- Click on the Multiple Capacitors tab to switch to another window and choose “2 in series” for
capacitors connected in series as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3

- Slide the slider on the battery to have a maximum voltage of +1.5 V, verified by the voltmeter
reading.
- Check all the boxes including Capacitance, Plate Charges, Storage Energy, Electric field lines
and Voltmeter.
- Use the values of the capacitor C1 and C2 to be 2.0 x 10-13F (0.2pF)
- Fill table 5 below including the experimental equivalent capacitance, voltage, charge and
potential energy of the equivalent capacitance.

Capacitance Capacitance C2 Equivalent Voltag Charge

C1 (pF) (pF) Capacitance e |Q| Energy
Cexp (pF) |V| (V) (pC) U (pJ)
0.2 0.2 0.10 1.5 0.150 0.112

Table 5.
- How do the experimental and theoretical values of equivalent capacitances compare?
Show the details of your calculation.
- C= (C1*C2)/(C1+C2)
- (0.2*0.2)/(0.2+0.2) = 0.1

6. Capacitors Connected in Parallel

- Click on the Multiple Capacitors tab to switch to another window and choose “2 in Parallel”
for capacitors connected in parallel as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4

- Slide the slider on the battery to have a maximum voltage of +1.5 V, verified by the voltmeter
reading.
- Check all the boxes including Capacitance, Plate Charges, Storage Energy, Electric field lines
and Voltmeter.
- Use the values of the capacitor C1 = 2.0 x 10-13F (0.2pF) and C2 = 2.0 x 10-13F (0.2pF)
- Fill table 6 below including the experimental equivalent capacitance, voltage, charge and
potential energy of the equivalent capacitance.

Capacitance Capacitances Equivalent Voltag Charge

C1 (pF) C2 (pF) Capacitance e |Q| Energy
Cexp (pF) |V| (V) (pC) U (pJ)
0.2 0.2 0.40 1.5 0.600 0.450
Table 6
- How do the experimental and theoretical values of equivalent capacitances compare?
Show the details of your calculation.

C = C1+C2
0.2+0.2 = 0.4

QUESTIONS
1) If a capacitor is connected to the battery and you double the area of the capacitor, what
happens to the capacitor voltage, charge, electric field and potential energy? Verify you
answer theoretically (show equations).

2) If a capacitor is connected to the battery and you double the capacitor plate separation, what
happens to the capacitor voltage, charge, electric field, and potential energy? Verify you
answer theoretically (show equations).

3) If a capacitor is connected to the battery and you replace the air by a dielectric with dielectric
constant , what happens to the capacitor voltage, charge, electric field, and potential
energy? Verify you answer theoretically (show equations).

4) If a capacitor C1, is connected to the battery and you disconnect the capacitor from the
battery, what happens to the capacitor voltage, charge, electric field, and potential energy?
Verify you answer experimentally.

5) If a capacitor C1, is connected to the battery and you connect a similar capacitor C2 in parallel
with it, what happens to the capacitor C1 voltage, charge, electric field, and potential energy?
Verify your answer theoretically (show equations).

CONCLUSION: What did you learn from this experiment?