How can I calculate the maximum electric field I can have in a capacitor?

Question

Before vacuum electrical breakdown occurs (perfect vacuum between the parallel plates for my case)

but not sure how to interpret the results

area of plate for example 100m2

The Photon · Accepted Answer · 2023-05-07 02:35:14Z

0

The vacuum between the plates of your ideal capacitor is not going to break down. Rather, the material of the plates will determine when an arc occurs, once the field strength becomes high enough to produce field emission.
The calculator you found just tells you what the field strength will be for a given charge on a ideal capacitor with a given plate area. It doesn't tell you anything about breakdown behavior.
Real capacitors break down before the theoretical limit is reached, for example due to rough spots on a plate concentrating the field locally, or due to impurities in the dielectric. This makes the theoretical limit more or less moot, or at best an unreachable limit as manufacturing technique improves.

answered May 7 at 2:35

The Photon

25.3k4 gold badges43 silver badges70 bronze badges

$\begingroup$ but how can i calculate it? $\endgroup$
– James
May 7 at 2:48
$\begingroup$ I want to know how many amperes can my superconductive capacitor hold $\endgroup$
– James
May 7 at 3:00
$\begingroup$ There is a discussion here, Superconducting Capacitor for Energy Storage? $\endgroup$
– Farcher
May 7 at 7:27
$\begingroup$ @James the point of my 3rd point is that calculation is not useful. You will have to build it and test it, because the real performance is determined by factors that the theoretical model doesn't capture. This means it's an engineering problem, not physics. $\endgroup$
– The Photon
May 7 at 13:32

Add a comment |

1 Answer 1