Units of capacitance
It is necessary to quantify a capacitor in terms of its ability to store charge. The basic unit of capacitance is the Farad, named after Michael Faraday.
The definition of A Farad is: A capacitor has a capacitance of one Farad when a potential difference of one volt will charge it with one coulomb of electricity (i.e. one Amp for one second).
In view of the fact that a capacitor with a capacitance of one Farad is too large for most electronics applications, components with much smaller values of capacitance are normally used. Three prefixes (multipliers) are used, µ (micro), n (nano) and p (pico):
| Prefix | Multiplier | |
|---|---|---|
| µ | 10-6 (millionth) | 1000000µF = 1F |
| n | 10-9 (thousand-millionth) | 1000nF = 1µF |
| p | 10-12 (million-millionth) | 1000pF = 1nF |
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