Types of Capacitors

Types of Capacitors

1. Air capacitors use air as a dielectric. Simplest air capacitors are made up of two conductive plates separated by an air gap. Air capacitors can be made a variable or fixed capacitance form.

2. This is the type of capacitor that uses an electrolyte to achieve a larger capacitance than other types of capacitor. An electrolyte is a liquid/gel that contains a high concentration of ions.

3. Supercapacitors are electronic devices which can store extremely large amounts of electrical charge. Supercapacitors are special subtype of electrolytic capacitors and is known as double-layer capacitors or ultracapacitor.

4. A ceramic capacitor uses a ceramic material as dielectric material. The most commonly used ceramic capacitors in modern electronics are muli-layer chip capacitor (MLCC) and ceramic disc capacitor. MLCC are made in SMD (surface-mounted) technology and is widely used due to its small size.

5. This type of capacitor is another subtype of the electrolytic capacitor. They are made of tantalum metal that acts as an anode, covered by a layer of oxide that acts as the dielectric, surrounded by conductive cathode. Tantalum allows for a very thin dielectric layer resulting in a higher capacitance value per volume, superior frequency characteristics compared to other types of capacitors and excellent stability over time.

Images and files in the map