Capacitors in series

Like other electrical elements, capacitors serve no purpose when used alone in a circuit. They are
connected to other elements in a circuit in one of two ways: either in series or in parallel. In some
cases it is useful to connect several capacitors in series in order to make a functional block:

Analysis
When this block is connected to a voltage source, each capacitor in the block stores an equal
amount of charge, which means that the total amount of charge is evenly distributed across all of
the capacitors, regardless of their capacitance. The amount of charge stored at each capacitor
equals:

where Qtotal is the total amount of charge in the complete block, and Q1 to Qn are charges at each
individual capacitor.

In order to explain why the charges at every capacitor are mutually equal, and equal to the total
amount of charge stored in the complete series connection block, let us assume that all capacitors
were uncharged at one point in time. When voltage is first applied across the block, the same
current flows through all the capacitors and as a result, charge shift occurs. Electrons are carried
from one plate of each capacitor to the other, which means that the charge stored by a plate of
any of the capacitors must have come from the adjacent capacitor’s plate. This means that charge
carriers (electrons) have simply shifted through all the capacitors, which is the reason that the
charges at each capacitor are equal.

That being said, it must be noted that the voltages across each capacitor are not equal, and are
calculated for each capacitor by using the known formula:

where Qn is the amount of charge on every capacitor in the series connection, Cn is the
capacitance of the capacitor, and Vn is the voltage across the capacitor.

By substituting the above formula for the voltage across a capacitor into this equation, having in
mind that the charge at every capacitor equals the total charge stored in the series connection, we
obtain the following formula:

which gives:

where Ceq is the equivalent capacitance, and C1 to Cn are the capacitance values of every
individual capacitor in the series connection.
In other words, the reciprocal value of the equivalent capacitance is equal to the sum of
reciprocal capacitance values for each capacitor in the series connection.

Capacitors in parallel
Capacitors, like other electrical elements, can be connected to other elements either in series or in
parallel. Sometimes it is useful to connect several capacitors in parallel in order to make a functional
block such as the one in the figure. In such cases, it is important to know the equivalent capacitance of
the parallel connection block. This article will focus on analyzing the parallel connection of capacitors
and possible applications for such circuits.

Analysis
All capacitors in the parallel connection have the same voltage across them, meaning that:

where V1 to Vn represent the voltage across each respective capacitor. This voltage is equal to
the voltage applied to the parallel connection of capacitors through the input wires. However, the
amount of charge stored at each capacitor is not the same, and depends on the capacitance of
each capacitor according to the formula:

where Qn is the amount of charge stored on a capacitor, Cn is the capacitance of the capacitor
and Vn is the voltage applied to the capacitor, which is equal to the voltage applied to the
complete parallel connection block. The total amount of charge that is stored by the block of
capacitors is represented by Q and is divided between all the capacitors present in this circuit.
This is represented by:

The following equation is used to determine the equivalent capacitance for the parallel
connection of multiple capacitors:

where Ceq is the equivalent capacitance of the parallel connection of capacitors, V is the voltage
applied to the capacitors through the input wires, and Q1 to Qn represent the charges stored at
each respective capacitor. This brings us to the important conclusion that:

which means that the equivalent capacitance of the parallel connection of capacitors is equal to
the sum of the individual capacitances. This result is intuitive as well – the capacitors in parallel
can be regarded as a single capacitor whose plate area is equal to the sum of plate areas of
individual capacitors.