ABSTRACT
The authors begin this chapter by explaining what electric charge is and how it is quantified, before moving on to describe the ways in which electric charge can be concentrated and stored in capacitors. In this chapter people explained that protons and electrons each carry a small electric charge; protons carry a single unit of positive charge whilst electrons carry a single unit of negative charge. The charge present on a single electron or a single proton is extremely small and it takes 6.25 × 1018 of these tiny charges to produce one coulomb of electric charge. The ability of a particular material or medium to support electric charge is known as permittivity, a key parameter in the specification of the dielectric material used in capacitors. Capacitors are invaluable electrical components that act as a repository for electric charge and store potential electrical energy in the form of an electric field between two conducting plates spaced by an insulating dielectric.
