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Question 80 of 122

Q.Deduce an expression for the capacitance of a parallel plate capacitor.

Tamil Nadu DgeTamil Nadu HSC (DGE) Board 2017Subjective· 5mImportance★★★★★
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By finding the uniform electric field between two oppositely charged parallel plates and integrating it to get the potential difference, the capacitance works out to C=ε0A/dC=\varepsilon_0 A/d.

Setup

Consider a parallel plate capacitor made of two large plane conducting plates, each of area AA, placed parallel to each other and separated by a small distance dd (so that dd is much smaller than the linear dimensions of the plates, allowing edge effects to be neglected). Let the plates carry equal and opposite charges +Q+Q and −Q-Q, so the surface charge density on each plate is σ=Q/A\sigma=Q/A.

Electric field between the plates

Each charged plate can be treated as an infinite plane sheet of charge, producing a uniform field of magnitude σ/2ε0\sigma/2\varepsilon_0 on each side, directed away from a positive sheet and towards a negative sheet. In the region between the plates, the fields due to the two sheets point in the same direction and add up, while outside the plates they cancel. Hence the field between the plates is

E=σ2ε0+σ2ε0=σε0=Qε0AE=\frac{\sigma}{2\varepsilon_0}+\frac{\sigma}{2\varepsilon_0}=\frac{\sigma}{\varepsilon_0}=\frac{Q}{\varepsilon_0 A}

and this field is uniform throughout the space between the plates (away from the edges).

Potential difference

Since the field is uniform, the potential difference between the plates is simply

V=E d=Qε0A d=Qdε0AV=E\,d=\frac{Q}{\varepsilon_0 A}\,d=\frac{Qd}{\varepsilon_0 A}

Capacitance

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