An electric circuit element used to store charge temporarily. Consist of two electrodes or plates, each of which stores an opposite charge. These two plates are conductive and are separated by an insulator or dielectric. The charge is stored at the surface of the plates, at the boundary with the dielectric. Because each plate stores an equal but opposite charge, the total charge in the device is always zero. The capacitors help maintain the contents of memory. Because of their tiny physical size, these components have low capacitance. They must be recharged thousands of times per second. Capacitors are used in power supplies, amplifiers, signal processors, oscillators, and logic gates.
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