Past exam of the physics course of the year 1 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge / 2016 / Paper 1 / Section A / A4

For an ideal air-gap parallel-plate capacitor, neglecting fringing, the electric field between oppositely charged plates is $E=\sigma /{ϵ}_0=Q/({ϵ}_{0}A)$. Dielectric breakdown therefore limits the magnitude of the electric charge on either plate toThe two plates carry $+Q$ and $-Q$; the quoted stored electric charge is the magnitude on one plate, rather than the net electric charge of the whole capacitor. The gap does not enter this ideal bound: $C={ϵ}_{0}A/d$ and $V_{\max }=E_{\mathrm{bd}}d$ make $C{V}_{\max }$ independent of $d$. Edge enhancement of the electric field can lower the practical limit.