University of Pennsylvania RC.

1


Capacitors and Resistors: Capacitor Time Constants

Goals of this lab
- Learn how to use an oscilloscope
- understand the behavior of a charging and discharging capacitor
- measure the time constant of a resistor-capacitor circuit
- Find the capacitance of 2 capacitors combined in series and in parallel

Note: See the Powerpoint file on the 102/151 Media gallery page of the lab web-site, for instructions on
how to wire the circuits. Refer to the lab manual section on the Oscilloscope for an explanation of how
the oscilloscope works and how to use it.

Overview

The simplest type of capacitor is a parallel plate capacitor, which is made by separating any two conducting
surfaces with any insulator. In most applications a positive charge Q is placed on one surface and a negative
charge Q on the other. The capacitanceis defined as C, and is related to the differencebetween the
electrostatic potentials of the surfaces, V and the charge Q by:
C
Q
V = (1)

It is clear that the greater the capacitance of the system the smaller the potential difference for a given
amount of charge. The standard unit of capacitance is the farad, which is a very large and inconvenient unit.
To get some perspective on how big a farad is, the capacitors you use in this lab will be in the range from
about one picofarad ( farad 10
12
) to one microfarad.

A charged capacitor will not discharge unless a conducting path is provided from one plate to the other. If
the capacitor is in a circuit and electric current flows, after some time has passed the capacitor will, for
practical purposes, be discharged. We wish to investigate the law governing the charge and discharge of a
capacitor through a circuit containing a resistance R.

The theory of capacitors is covered in your textbook; please refer to that for the derivation of the equations
we use. The important point is that the charge on a discharging capacitor smoothly decreases to zero and
does not vanish instantaneously. After a time t = RC the remaining charge is approximately 37% e
1
~ 0.37 ( )

of its initial value, after a time 2t, 14%, and after 5t, about 1% of its initial value . The quantity RC is called
the time constant of the resistor-capacitor circuit and has the units of seconds.

Suppose that we start with the capacitor uncharged and charge it
through a resistor with an applied power supply voltage of V
0

using the circuit shown in Figure 1.

One can show that, the voltages across the capacitor and resistor are
v
c
t ( )= V
0
1 e

t
RC
|
\


|
.
|
|
and v
R
t ( )= V
0
e

t
RC
(2)
.
And the total voltage is ( ) ( )
0
V t v t v
R c
= + (3)

Figure 1
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After a time equal to many time constants has elapsed, the current is effectively zero and the voltage across
the capacitor is
0
V .
.
Prelab Question 1: The rate at which the voltage on a capacitor changes depends on the
amount of voltage already present on the capacitor at that moment.

To get a sense of how this kind of behavior will develop, consider an ancient Greek paradox. Zeno
proposed that it was impossible to travel from one place to another. He reasoned that if you
considered the trip to be a series of moves, each of which halved the remaining distance, it would
take an infinite number of moves to reduce the distance to zero. Of course the amount your distance
changes with each move gets smaller as your distance gets closer to the final value. Sounds a lot like
charge in a capacitor!

1a) Plot Zeno's position vs. time. He is 20 meters away
from you at time t = 0, and tries to reach you by
halving his distance every second. The time it takes
Zeno for each halving move depends on his physical
fitness. Compare your plot to the oscilloscope trace for
the discharge of the capacitor in the lab. Refer to the
lab manual to find out what the halving time depends
on for the capacitor.

1b) About how many halving-steps are needed for the
value of the distance (or charge or voltage) to approach
so close to zero that it is practically zero?



Prelab Question 2: The memory in your computer (DDR-SDRAM memory) stores data in binary
(zeros and ones). The information is kept on many capacitors where the charge state of the capacitor
determines whether the bit is zero or one. If the voltage is 2 Volts the state of the bit is one. If it is 1
Volt, the state of the bit is zero. An important aspect of the memory is how fast it can change the state
of the bits. The speed of the memory is the reciprocal of how long it takes to change states. Here this
time is determined by the capacitance and residual impedance of the circuit. For this example the RC
time constant is 50 ns (nanoseconds or 10
-9
s).

a) How long will it take for a capacitor fully charge at 2.5V to charge from 0V to 2V?
What does this time represent in binary terms?
b) How long will it take for a capacitor to discharge from 2.5V to 1V? What does this time
represent in binary tems ?
c) How long will it take for a capacitor which is fully charged at 3V to discharge to 1V?
d) Explain (in terms of memory speed) why you would want to run the memory as close to
the transition points as possible.
e) Based on the time in part b) what is the speed of this memory chip?











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We can obtain repetitive charging and
discharging of the capacitor by using a
voltage source (function generator)
whose output is the "square wave"
sequence of voltage steps illustrated in
Figure 2. If the period f T 1 = of the
square wave is much longer than the
time constant of the circuit, the
capacitor will charge and discharge,
and the voltage across it will resemble
the dotted curve.






The time constant of a resistor-capacitor circuit ist = RC. The time
T
1 2
, can be defined as the time for the
charge on the capacitor to reach half of its maximum value, which is very much like the radioactive decay
half-life. From equation (2) the time constant and T
1 2
are related by

T
1 2
= t ln2 = 0.693t (4)


Prelab Question 3)

a) What is the time constant for a memory stick which works at a frequency of 100 MHZ?

b) Assuming that the voltage definitions are the same as in Prelab Question 2, at what frequency can you run
this same memory stick for the capacitor to be fully charged at 3V? (ignoring the fire hazard)


Questions
1. Calculate the ratio
) (
max
t
R
V
V
. Explain your answer.
2. Calculate
) (
) 2 (
t V
t V
R
R
, and
) 2 (
) 3 (
t V
t V
R
R
where t is an arbitrary time. How do these ratios compare?


N.B.: The external trigger can be used to insure that the oscilloscope will always produce a trace, no matter
how you change the function generator signal.




Figure 2: The Charging-discharging capacitor voltage and
square wave voltage across the capacitor superimposed
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Procedure- Part I

1. Set the VERTICAL MODE switch to CH1 and the input to DC and connect the resistor, one of your
capacitors and the scope as shown in Figure 3. Set the generator output for a square wave. Connect
Channel 1 as in Figure 3. REFER to Table 1 for scope settings

2. Measure the voltage and period of the square-wave from the time for one full wave cycle. Compare
the measured period with the period calculated from the numbers displayed on the generator. Vary
the signal amplitude and read the voltages displayed on the scope.







3. Use the meter in the lab to measure the resistance of the resistor and capacitance of the capacitors.
Remove each resistor or capacitor from the circuit before measuring it with the meter.

4. Connect Channel 1 across the capacitor. The trace should look like the lower trace in Figure 4 on
page 5. Determine the time interval T
1 2
. Calculate the time constantt. Find the capacitance and
compare it with the nominal value and the value measured with the meter. (Optional: Use two
channels as in Part II of this procedure, step 1.)
5. Measure at least two other points on the charging Voltage vs time curve with the oscilloscope.
6. Plot a predicted graph of Voltage versus time for your charging capacitor and compare your
measured points with this graph.
7. Measure the capacitance of two capacitors in series using the oscilloscope.

8. Measure the capacitance of two capacitors in parallel using the oscilloscope.

Table 1: Oscilloscope settings for the capacitor-resistor circuit
Oscilloscope control name SETTI NG
Input Switch (below the Volts/DIV
knob)
DC (Directly Coupled)
Coupling AC
Trigger Source User Defined
Trigger Slope +
Time variable CAL'D
V/div variable CAL'D
Invert CH2 switch Out (not pushed in)
Figure 3: Channel 1 on the Oscilloscope is measuring the input
square-wave voltage. Set the inputs to DC.
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Procedure- Part I I

1. Start with the circuit wired as in Figure 3. Connect Channel 2 to a point in between the resistor and
the capacitor. Adjust the time scale to display one cycle or less on the oscilloscope screen, as shown
in Figure 4a. Adjust the frequency of the function generator, and the time scale, until the capacitor
very nearly charges and discharges during one cycle as shown in Figure 4b.








2. Wire the connections as shown in Figure 5. Now Channel 1 is displaying the voltage across the
resistor and Channel 2 is displaying the voltage across the capacitor. Invert the Channel 2 voltage to
correct the polarity. (You will either have a separate button to invert or a pull-out knob.) Look at the
two voltages at the same time. Now switch to ADD mode. Explain what you observe. Sketch this.















HS 2/19/10 capacitors.doc

Figure 4a: Oscilloscope Display of the I nput Voltage
(upper trace) and the Capacitor Voltage (lower
trace)
Figure 5: Measuring Voltages across the capacitor and the resistor
at the same time with the oscilloscope
Figure 4b: The
T
1 2
Time
Measurement