Charging a capacitor

Consider the circuit shown below. The capacitor C, initially uncharged [q(t = 0) = 0], is
connected to a DC voltage supply of electromotive force E. At time t = 0, the switch S is closed.

For t < 0 there is no voltage across the capacitor, so the capacitor acts like a short-circuit. At t = 0
the switch S is closed and current begin to flow, according to00

I0 = E/R

At this instant the potential difference from the battery terminals is the same as that across the
resistor. This initiate the charging of the capacitor, and the voltage across the capacitor terminals
increases in time:

UC(t) = q(t)/C

Using Kirchhoff’s voltage law in the clockwise direction, we obtain:

E = UC(t) + Ri(t)

Taking into account that UC(t) = q(t)/C and I(t) = dq/dt, the equation above will be

E = q(t)/C + R·dq/dt

The solution of this equation is:

q(t) = C·E(1 – e-t/RC) = Q(1 – e-t/RC)

Q = C·E is the maximum amount of charge on the capacitor plates, at the end of the charging
process.

The time dependance of q(t) is plotted in the figure below:

Once we know the charge on the capacitor, we also can determinate the voltage across the
capacitor:

Uc(t) = q(t)/C = E(1 – e-t/RC)

The plott UC(t) has the same form as q(t) presented above. After a sufficiently long time, the
charge on the capacitor plates approaches the value

q(t = ∞) = Q = C·E

At that time, the voltage across the capacitor is equal to the applied voltage source and the
charging process effectively ends:

UC(t = ∞) = q(t = ∞)/C = Q/C = E

The current that flows in the circuit is equal to the derivative in time of the charge q(t):

i(t) = dq/dt = (E/R)e-t/RC = I0·e-t/RC

The graph of the current as function of time is shown in figure below

The current in the charging circuit decreases exponentially in time.

The quantity

τ = RC

is called “time constant” .

Notice that at time t = 0, UC(t = 0) = 0. After one time constant τ has elapsed, the potential
difference across the capacitor has increased by a factor (1 – e-1) = 0.632 of its final value:

U(t = τ) = E(1 – 1/e) = 0.632·E