Analysis of Dielectric Absorption in Capacitors

This study proposes a method of studying and modeling the dielectric absorption in capacitors. Dielectric absorption is a well known phenomenon in capacitors which manifests as a slow recovery of a part of its lost voltage after the capacitor is completely discharged by shorting its terminals momentarily. The Ceramic NP0 100pF capacitor of Johnson Technology (Capacitor type: R05L series) is used for analyzing this effect using a standard model where a network of parallel RC branches in parallel to the actual capacitance provides satisfactory explanation for the observations. The measurement result shows a dielectric absorption effect of the order of 2% in the capacitor.