One farad is defined as the capacitance across which, when charged with one coulomb, there is a potential difference of one volt. Equally, one farad can be described as the capacitance which stores a one-coulomb charge across a potential difference of one volt. The relationship between capacitance, charge, and potential difference is linear. For example, if the potential difference across a capacitor is halved, the quantity of charge stored by that capacitor will also be halved. For most applications, the farad is an impractically large unit of capacitance. Most electrical and electronic applications are covered by the following SI prefixes:
The term "farad" was originally coined by Latimer Clark and Charles Bright in 1861, in honor of Michael Faraday, for a unit of quantity of charge, but by 1873, the farad had become a unit of capacitance. In 1881 at the International Congress of Electricians in Paris, the name farad was officially used for the unit of electrical capacitance.
Explanation
A capacitor generally consists of two conducting surfaces, frequently referred to as plates, separated by an insulating layer usually referred to as a dielectric. The original capacitor was the Leyden jar developed in the 18th century. It is the accumulation of electric charge on the plates that results in capacitance. Modern capacitors are constructed using a range of manufacturing techniques and materials to provide the extraordinarily wide range of capacitance values used in electronics applications from femtofarads to farads, with maximum-voltage ratings ranging from a few volts to several kilovolts. Values of capacitors are usually specified infarads, microfarads, nanofarads and picofarads. The millifarad is rarely used in practice, while the nanofarad is uncommon in North America. The size of commercially available capacitors ranges from around 0.1 pF to supercapacitors. Parasitic capacitance in high-performance integrated circuits can be measured in femtofarads, while high-performance test equipment can detect changes in capacitance on the order of tens of attofarads. A value of 0.1 pF is about the smallest available in capacitors for general use in electronic design, since smaller ones would be dominated by the parasitic capacitances of other components, wiring or printed circuit boards. Capacitance values of 1 pF or lower can be achieved by twisting two short lengths of insulated wire together. The capacitance of the Earth's ionospherewith respect to the ground is calculated to be about 1 F.
Informal and deprecated terminology
The picofarad is sometimes colloquially pronounced as "puff" or "pic", as in "a ten-puff capacitor". Similarly, "mic" is sometimes used informally to signify microfarads. Nonstandard abbreviations were and are often used. Farad has been abbreviated "f", "fd", and "Fd". For the prefix "micro-", when the Greek small letter "μ" or the legacy micro sign "μ" is not available or inconvenient to enter, it is often substituted with the similar-appearing "u" or "U", with little risk of confusion. It was also substituted with the similar-sounding "M" or "m", which can be confusing because M officially stands for 1,000,000, and m preferably stands for 1/1000. In texts prior to 1960, and on capacitor packages until more recently, "microfarad" was abbreviated "mf" or "MFD" rather than the modern "µF". A 1940 Radio Shack catalog listed every capacitor's rating in "Mfd.", from 0.000005 Mfd. to 50 Mfd.. "Micromicrofarad" or "micro-microfarad" is an obsolete unit found in some older texts and labels, contains a nonstandard metric double prefix. It is exactly equivalent to a picofarad. It is abbreviated μμF, uuF, or "mmf", "MMF", or "MMFD".
The abfarad is an obsolete CGS unit of capacitanceequal to farads. The statfarad is a rarely used CGS unit equivalent to the capacitance of a capacitor with a charge of 1 statcoulomb across a potential difference of 1 statvolt. It is 1/ farad, approximately 1.1126 picofarads.
