5.2.8. Capacitors¶
In its simplest form a capacitor is made from two parallel metal plates. Obviously a DC current cannot flow from one plate to the other. For DC voltages the capacitor functions as an insulator. Again, as for the inductors, things change when considering a time varying voltage.
For the capacitor fysicists can tell us that the current ‘through’ the capacitor is proportional to the time derivative of the voltage accross the capacitor:
where \(C\) is the capitance measured in Farad. Consider \(u(t)=\exp(j\omega t)\) then \(i(t) = j\omega C u(t)\) and thus for the complex impedance for the capacitor we have:
Again carefully note that the relation between voltage and current expressed with the complex impedance is only valid for sinusoidal functions.