Capacitor current 2026-10-24
With current entering the positive-voltage terminal, differentiating the capacitor charge relation at fixed capacitance gives . A changing voltage drives current through the external circuit while a changing electric field supplies displacement current across an ideal vacuum gap.
Use an ideal operational amplifier with its non-inverting terminal grounded, an input resistor and a feedback capacitor , as in the upper circuit. Stable unsaturated negative feedback holds the inverting terminal at virtual ground, while the input current into the amplifier itself vanishes.
Inverting operational-amplifier integrator and differentiator circuits
. Details. Applying Kirchhoff's current law at the inverting node givesThus the circuit is an inverting op amp integrator, with its integration constant set by the initial capacitor charge. A constant input makes the output ramp until a real amplifier reaches a supply rail. A practical low-frequency design usually adds a large feedback resistor to limit drift; the ideal integral relation applies where the feedback capacitor dominates.
