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How Capacitors Work

In a way, a capacitor is a little like a battery. Although they work in completely different ways, capacitors
and batteries both store electrical energy. If you have read How Batteries Work, then you know that a
battery has two terminals. Inside the battery, chemical reactions produce electrons on one terminal and
absorb electrons on the other terminal. A capacitor is much simpler than a battery, as it can't produce new
electrons -- it only stores them.
In this article, we'll learn exactly what a capacitor is, what it does and how it's used in electronics. We'll
also look at the history of the capacitor and how several people helped shape its progress.
Inside the capacitor, the terminals connect to two metal plates separated by a non-conducting
substance, or dielectric. You can easily make a capacitor from two pieces of aluminum foil and a piece
of paper. It won't be a particularly good capacitor in terms of its storage capacity, but it will work.
In theory, the dielectric can be any non-conductive substance. However, for practical applications, specific
materials are used that best suit the capacitor's function. Mica, ceramic, cellulose, porcelain, Mylar,
Teflon and even air are some of the non-conductive materials used. The dielectric dictates what kind of
capacitor it is and for what it is best suited. Depending on the size and type of dielectric, some capacitors
are better for high frequency uses, while some are better for high voltage applications. Capacitors can be
manufactured to serve any purpose, from the smallest plastic capacitor in your calculator, to an ultra
capacitor that can power a commuter bus. NASA uses glass capacitors to help wake up the space
shuttle's circuitry and help deploy space probes. Here are some of the various types of capacitors and
how they are used.

Air - Often used in radio tuning circuits

Mylar - Most commonly used for timer circuits like clocks, alarms and counters

Glass - Good for high voltage applications

Ceramic - Used for high frequency purposes like antennas, X-ray and MRI machines

Capacitor Circuit
In an electronic circuit, a capacitor is shown like this:
When you connect a capacitor to a battery, here's what happens:

The plate on the capacitor that attaches to the negative terminal of the battery
accepts electrons that the battery is producing.

The plate on the capacitor that attaches to the positive terminal of the battery loses electrons to
the battery.

Once it's charged, the capacitor has the same voltage as the battery (1.5 volts on the battery means 1.5
volts on the capacitor). For a small capacitor, the capacity is small. But large capacitors can hold quite a
bit of charge. You can find capacitors as big as soda cans that hold enough charge to light a flashlight
bulb for a minute or more.
Even nature shows the capacitor at work in the form of lightning. One plate is the cloud, the other plate is
the ground and the lightning is the charge releasing between these two "plates." Obviously, in a capacitor
that large, you can hold a huge amount of charge!

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Let's say you hook up a capacitor like this:

Here you have a battery, a light bulb and a capacitor. If the capacitor is pretty big, what you will notice is
that, when you connect the battery, the light bulb will light up as current flows from the battery to the
capacitor to charge it up. The bulb will get progressively dimmer and finally go out once the capacitor
reaches its capacity. If you then remove the battery and replace it with a wire, current will flow from one
plate of the capacitor to the other. The bulb will light initially and then dim as the capacitor discharges,
until it is completely out.
In the next section, we'll learn more about capacitance and take a detailed look at the different ways that
capacitors are used.
LIKE A WATER TOWER
One way to visualize the action of a capacitor is to imagine it as a water tower hooked to a pipe. A water
tower "stores" water pressure -- when the water system pumps produce more water than a town needs,
the excess is stored in the water tower. Then, at times of high demand, the excess water flows out of the
tower to keep the pressure up. A capacitor stores electron in the same way and can then release them
later.

Farad
A capacitor's storage potential, or capacitance, is measured in units called farads. A 1-farad capacitor
can store one coulomb (coo-lomb) of charge at 1 volt. A coulomb is 6.25e18 (6.25 * 10^18, or 6.25 billion
billion) electrons. One amp represents a rate of electron flow of 1 coulomb of electrons per second, so a
1-farad capacitor can hold 1 amp-second of electrons at 1 volt.
A 1-farad capacitor would typically be pretty big. It might be as big as a can of tuna or a 1-liter soda bottle,
depending on the voltage it can handle. For this reason, capacitors are typically measured in microfarads
(millionths of a farad).
To get some perspective on how big a farad is, think about this:

A standard alkaline AA battery holds about 2.8 amp-hours.

That means that a AA battery can produce 2.8 amps for an hour at 1.5 volts (about 4.2 watt-hours
-- a AA battery can light a 4-watt bulb for a little more than an hour).

Let's call it 1 volt to make the math easier. To store one AA battery's energy in a capacitor, you
would need 3,600 * 2.8 = 10,080 farads to hold it, because an amp-hour is 3,600 amp-seconds.

If it takes something the size of a can of tuna to hold a farad, then 10,080 farads is going to take up a LOT
more space than a single AA battery! Obviously, it's impractical to use capacitors to store any significant
amount of power unless you do it at a high voltage.
Applications
The difference between a capacitor and a battery is that a capacitor can dump its entire charge in a tiny
fraction of a second, where a battery would take minutes to completely discharge. That's why the
electronic flash on a camera uses a capacitor -- the battery charges up the flash's capacitor over several
seconds, and then the capacitor dumps the full charge into the flash tube almost instantly. This can make

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a large, charged capacitor extremely dangerous -- flash units and TVs have warnings about opening them
up for this reason. They contain big capacitors that can, potentially, kill you with the charge they contain.
Capacitors are used in several different ways in electronic circuits:

Sometimes, capacitors are used to store charge for high-speed use. That's what a flash does.
Big lasers use this technique as well to get very bright, instantaneous flashes.

Capacitors can also eliminate ripples. If a line carrying DC voltage has ripples or spikes in it, a big
capacitor can even out the voltage by absorbing the peaks and filling in the valleys.

A capacitor can block DC voltage. If you hook a small capacitor to a battery, then no current will
flow between the poles of the battery once the capacitor charges. However, any alternating
current (AC) signal flows through a capacitor unimpeded. That's because the capacitor will
charge and discharge as the alternating current fluctuates, making it appear that the alternating
current is flowing.

In the next section, we'll look at the history of the capacitor and how some of the most brilliant minds
contributed to its progress.

History of the Capacitor

The invention of the capacitor varies somewhat depending on who you ask. There are records that
indicate a German scientist named Ewald Georg von Kleist invented the capacitor in November 1745.

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Several months later Pieter van Musschenbroek, a Dutch professor at the University of Leyden came up
with a very similar device in the form of the Leyden jar, which is typically credited as the first capacitor.
Since Kleist didn't have detailed records and notes, nor the notoriety of his Dutch counterpart, he's often
overlooked as a contributor to the capacitor's evolution. However, over the years, both have been given
equal credit as it was established that their research was independent of each other and merely a
scientific coincidence
The Leyden jar was a very simple device. It consisted of a glass jar, half filled with water and lined inside
and out with metal foil. The glass acted as the dielectric, although it was thought for a time that water was
the key ingredient. There was usually a metal wire or chain driven through a cork in the top of the jar. The
chain was then hooked to something that would deliver a charge, most likely a hand-cranked static
generator. Once delivered, the jar would hold two equal but opposite charges in equilibrium until they
were connected with a wire, producing a slight spark or shock
Benjamin Franklin worked with the Leyden jar in his experiments with electricity and soon found that a flat
piece of glass worked as well as the jar model, prompting him to develop the flat capacitor, or Franklin
square. Years later, English chemist Michael Faraday would pioneer the first practical applications for the
capacitor in trying to store unused electrons from his experiments. This led to the first usable capacitor,
made from large oil barrels. Faraday's progress with capacitors is what eventually enabled us to deliver
electric power over great distances. As a result of Faraday's achievements in the field of electricity, the
unit of measurement for capacitors, or capacitance, became known as the farad .
How Inductors Work

An inductor is about as simple as an electronic component can get -- it is simply a coil of wire. It turns out,
however, that a coil of wire can do some very interesting things because of the magnetic properties of a
coil.
In this article, we'll learn all about inductors and what they're used for.

Inductor Basics
In a circuit diagram, an inductor is shown like this:
To understand how an inductor can work in a circuit, this figure is helpful:

What you see here is a battery, a light bulb, a coil of wire around a piece of iron (yellow) and a switch.
The coil of wire is an inductor. If you have read How Electromagnets Work, you might recognize that the
inductor is an electromagnet.
If you were to take the inductor out of this circuit, what you would have is a normal flashlight. You close
the switch and the bulb lights up. With the inductor in the circuit as shown, the behavior is completely
different.
The light bulb is a resistor (the resistance creates heat to make the filament in the bulb glow see How
Light Bulbs Work for details). The wire in the coil has much lower resistance (it's just wire), so what you
would expect when you turn on the switch is for the bulb to glow very dimly. Most of the current should
follow the low-resistance path through the loop. What happens instead is that when you close the switch,
the bulb burns brightly and then gets dimmer. When you open the switch, the bulb burns very brightly and
then quickly goes out.
The reason for this strange behavior is the inductor. When current first starts flowing in the coil, the coil
wants to build up a magnetic field. While the field is building, the coil inhibits the flow of current. Once

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the field is built, current can flow normally through the wire. When the switch gets opened, the magnetic
field around the coil keeps current flowing in the coil until the field collapses. This current keeps the bulb
lit for a period of time even though the switch is open. In other words, an inductor can store energy in its
magnetic field, and an inductor tends to resist any change in the amount of current flowing through it.
THINK ABOUT WATER...
One way to visualize the action of an inductor is to imagine a narrow channel with water flowing through
it, and a heavy water wheel that has its paddles dipping into the channel. Imagine that the water in the
channel is not flowing initially.
Now you try to start the water flowing. The paddle wheel will tend to prevent the water from flowing until it
has come up to speed with the water. If you then try to stop the flow of water in the channel, the spinning
water wheel will try to keep the water moving until its speed of rotation slows back down to the speed of
the water. An inductor is doing the same thing with the flow of electrons in a wire -- an inductor resists a
change in the flow of electrons.
Henries
The capacity of an inductor is controlled by four factors:

The number of coils - More coils means more inductance.

The material that the coils are wrapped around (the core)

The cross-sectional area of the coil - More area means more inductance.

The length of the coil - A short coil means narrower (or overlapping) coils, which means more
inductance.

Putting iron in the core of an inductor gives it much more inductance than air or any non-magnetic core
would.
The standard unit of inductance is the Henry. The equation for calculating the number of henries in an
inductor is:
H = (4 * Pi * #Turns * #Turns * coil Area * mu) / (coil Length * 10,000,000)
The area and length of the coil are in meters. The term mu is the permeability of the core. Air has a
permeability of 1, while steel might have a permeability of 2,000.
Inductor Application: Traffic Light Sensors
Let's say you take a coil of wire perhaps 6 feet (2 meters) in diameter, containing five or six loops of wire.
You cut some grooves in a road and place the coil in the grooves. You attach an inductance meter to the
coil and see what the inductance of the coil is.

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Now you park a car over the coil and check the inductance again. The inductance will be much larger
because of the large steel object positioned in the loop's magnetic field. The car parked over the coil is
acting like the core of the inductor, and its presence changes the inductance of the coil. Most traffic light
sensors use the loop in this way. The sensor constantly tests the inductance of the loop in the road, and
when the inductance rises it knows there is a car waiting!
How Light Emitting Diodes Work

Light emitting diodes, commonly called LEDs, are real unsung heroes in the electronics world. They do
dozens of different jobs and are found in all kinds of devices. Among other things, they form numbers
on digital clocks, transmit information from remote controls, light up watches and tell you when your
appliances are turned on. Collected together, they can form images on a jumbo television
screen or illuminate a traffic light.
Basically, LEDs are just tiny light bulbs that fit easily into an electrical circuit. But unlike
ordinary incandescent bulbs, they don't have a filament that will burn out, and they don't get especially
hot. They are illuminated solely by the movement of electrons in asemiconductor material, and they last
just as long as a standard transistor. The lifespan of an LED surpasses the short life of an incandescent
bulb by thousands of hours. Tiny LEDs are already replacing the tubes that light up LCD HDTVs to make
dramatically thinner televisions.
In this article, we'll examine the technology behind these ubiquitous blinkers, illuminating some cool
principles of electricity and light in the process.

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At the junction, free electrons from the N-type material fill holes from the P-type material. This
creates an insulating layer in the middle of the diode called the depletion zone.
What is a Diode?

When the negative end of the circuit is hooked up to the N-type layer and the positive end is
hooked up to P-type layer, electrons and holes start moving and the depletion zone disappears.

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When the positive end of the circuit is hooked up to the N-type layer and the negative end is
hooked up to the P-type layer, free electrons collect on one end of the diode and holes collect on
the other. The depletion zone gets bigger.
A diode is the simplest sort of semiconductor device. Broadly speaking, a semiconductor is a material with
a varying ability to conduct electrical current. Most semiconductors are made of a poor conductor that has
had impurities (atoms of another material) added to it. The process of adding impurities is called doping.
In the case of LEDs, the conductor material is typically aluminum-gallium-arsenide (AlGaAs). In pure
aluminum-gallium-arsenide, all of the atoms bond perfectly to their neighbors, leaving no free electrons
(negatively charged particles) to conduct electric current. In doped material, additional atoms change the
balance, either adding free electrons or creating holes where electrons can go. Either of these alterations
make the material more conductive.
A semiconductor with extra electrons is called N-type material, since it has extra negatively charged
particles. In N-type material, free electrons move from a negatively charged area to a positively charged
area.
A semiconductor with extra holes is called P-type material, since it effectively has extra positively charged
particles. Electrons can jump from hole to hole, moving from a negatively charged area to a positively
charged area. As a result, the holes themselves appear to move from a positively charged area to a
negatively charged area.
A diode consists of a section of N-type material bonded to a section of P-type material, with electrodes on
each end. This arrangement conducts electricity in only one direction. When no voltage is applied to the
diode, electrons from the N-type material fill holes from the P-type material along the junction between the
layers, forming a depletion zone. In a depletion zone, the semiconductor material is returned to its original

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insulating state -- all of the holes are filled, so there are no free electrons or empty spaces for electrons,
and charge can't flow.
To get rid of the depletion zone, you have to get electrons moving from the N-type area to the P-type area
and holes moving in the reverse direction. To do this, you connect the N-type side of the diode to the
negative end of a circuit and the P-type side to the positive end. The free electrons in the N-type material
are repelled by the negative electrode and drawn to the positive electrode. The holes in the P-type
material move the other way. When the voltage difference between the electrodes is high enough, the
electrons in the depletion zone are boosted out of their holes and begin moving freely again. The
depletion zone disappears, and charge moves across the diode.
If you try to run current the other way, with the P-type side connected to the negative end of the circuit
and the N-type side connected to the positive end, current will not flow. The negative electrons in the Ntype material are attracted to the positive electrode. The positive holes in the P-type material are attracted
to the negative electrode. No current flows across the junction because the holes and the electrons are
each moving in the wrong direction. The depletion zone increases. (See How Semiconductors Work for
more information on the entire process.)
The interaction between electrons and holes in this setup has an interesting side effect -- it generates
light! In the next section, we'll find out exactly why this is.
How Can a Diode Produce Light?
Light is a form of energy that can be released by an atom. It is made up of many small particle-like
packets that have energy and momentum but no mass. These particles, called photons, are the most
basic units of light.
Photons are released as a result of moving electrons. In an atom, electrons move in orbitals around the
nucleus. Electrons in different orbitals have different amounts of energy. Generally speaking, electrons
with greater energy move in orbitals farther away from the nucleus.
For an electron to jump from a lower orbital to a higher orbital, something has to boost its energy level.
Conversely, an electron releases energy when it drops from a higher orbital to a lower one. This energy is
released in the form of a photon. A greater energy drop releases a higher-energy photon, which is
characterized by a higher frequency. (Check out How Light Works for a full explanation.)
As we saw in the last section, free electrons moving across a diode can fall into empty holes from the Ptype layer. This involves a drop from the conduction band to a lower orbital, so the electrons release
energy in the form of photons. This happens in any diode, but you can only see the photons when the
diode is composed of certain material. The atoms in a standard silicon diode, for example, are arranged in
such a way that the electron drops a relatively short distance. As a result, the photon's frequency is so low
that it is invisible to the human eye -- it is in the infrared portion of the light spectrum. This isn't necessarily
a bad thing, of course: Infrared LEDs are ideal for remote controls, among other things.

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Visible light-emitting diodes (VLEDs), such as the ones that light up numbers in a digital clock, are made
of materials characterized by a wider gap between the conduction band and the lower orbitals. The size of
the gap determines the frequency of the photon -- in other words, it determines the color of the light.
While LEDs are used in everything from remote controls to the digital displays on electronics, visible
LEDs are growing in popularity and use thanks to their long lifetimes and miniature size. Depending on
the materials used in LEDs, they can be built to shine in infrared, ultraviolet, and all the colors of the
visible spectrum in between.
In the next section we'll look at the advantages of LEDs.

The interior of a LED is actually quite simple, which is one of the reasons this technology is so
versatile.
LED Advantages
While all diodes release light, most don't do it very effectively. In an ordinary diode, the semiconductor
material itself ends up absorbing a lot of the light
energy. LEDs are specially constructed to release a large number of photons outward. Additionally, they
are housed in a plastic bulb that concentrates the light in a particular direction. As you can see in the
diagram, most of the light from the diode bounces off the sides of the bulb, traveling on through the
rounded end.
LEDs have several advantages over conventional incandescent lamps. For one thing, they don't have a
filament that will burn out, so they last much longer. Additionally, their small plastic bulb makes them a lot
more durable. They also fit more easily into modern electronic circuits.
But the main advantage is efficiency. In conventional incandescent bulbs, the light-production process
involves generating a lot of heat (the filament must be warmed). This is completely wasted energy, unless

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you're using the lamp as a heater, because a huge portion of the available electricity isn't going toward
producing visible light. LEDs generate very little heat, relatively speaking. A much higher percentage of
the electrical power is going directly to generating light, which cuts down on the electricity demands
considerably.
Per-watt, LEDs output more lumens of light than regular incandescent bulbs. Light emitting diodes have a
higher luminous efficacy (how efficiently electricity is converted to visible light) than incandescents -- for
example, Sewell's EvoLux LED bulb produces 76.9 lumens per watt compared to an incandescent bulb's
17 lm/W [source: Sewell]. And they last: LEDs can have lifetimes of 50,000 hours or
more [source: Design Recycle Inc].
Up until recently, LEDs were too expensive to use for most lighting applications because they're built
around advanced semiconductor material. The price of semiconductor devices has plummeted since the
year 2000, however, making LEDs a more cost-effective lighting option for a wide range of situations.
While they may be more expensive than incandescent lights up front, their lower cost in the long run can
make them a better buy. Several companies have begun selling LED light bulbs designed to compete with
incandescent and compact fluorescents that promise to deliver long lives of bright light and amazing
energy efficiency.
Over the next couple of pages we'll take a look at the future of LEDs in our homes. One day they may be
plugged into our light bulb sockets, lighting up our digital readouts and illuminating the millions of pixels
that make up our high-definition televisions.
LED Light Bulbs vs. Incan descents and Fluorescents
For decades, 100-watt incandescent light bulbs have lit up hallways and bedrooms; 60-watt
incandescents have shone softer light from reading lamps and closets. But incandescent lights have
some problems. They're inefficient, wasting lots of energy as heat, and have shorter lifespans than
fluorescent lamps. Recently, compact fluorescent (CFL) bulbs have become popular alternatives to
incandescent bulbs thanks to lower power consumption. Where incandescent lights last an average of
around 1,000 hours, CFLs can last 8,000 hours. Unfortunately, CFLs contain toxic mercury that makes
them potentially hazardous and a pain to dispose of
Enter the LED light bulb. LEDs offer the advantages of CFLs -- lower power consumption and longer
lifetimes -- without the downside of toxic mercury. For example, a 60-watt incandescent light bulb draws
more than $300 worth of electricity per year and provides about 800 lumens of light; an equivalent
compact fluorescent uses less than 15 watts and costs only about $75 of electricity per year. LED bulbs
are even better, drawing less than 8 watts of power, costing about $30 per year, and lasting 50,000 hours
or longer [source: Design Recyle Inc]. There are only 8,760 hours in a whole year -- imagine how long an
LED bulb would last in the average home!
That makes LEDs sound pretty great -- and they are -- but there's a reason incandescent and compact
fluorescent bulbs are still around. LED bulbs present a high up-front cost compared to other bulbs.
Incandescent bulbs sell in packages for only a few bucks. As of mid-2011, Sewell's EvoLux LED bulbs

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sold for more than $70 apiece! However, because of their longer life spans and dramatically lower power
usage, LED bulbs make up for the high barrier of entry. Since there's no toxic mercury in an LED, they're
also easier and cheaper to dispose of than CFLs. And since LEDs can be built to light up in a variety of
colors, they don't need filters like other bulbs.
LED lighting obviously isn't perfect yet. In addition to the high cost barrier, LEDs are vulnerable to high
temperatures. If LED circuitry gets too hot, more current will pass through the junction mentioned earlier
in this article. When too much current courses through the junction, it will cause irreversible burn-out often
called LED meltdown.
LEDs and fluorescents put off "cool" or bluish light compared to the "warm," yellowish light typical of
incandescent bulbs. The difference in lighting types can take some adjustment, but LEDs obviously offer
numerous advantages over incandescents. LEDs are even easy to dim and are perfect for encouraging
plant growth, since they efficiently put off tons of light without producing heat that could potentially be
damaging to plant life.
LED TVs and the Future of Light Emitting Diodes
LEDs have come a long way since the early days of lighting up digital clock faces. In the 2000s, LCD TVs
took over the high definition market and represented a huge step over old standard definition CRT
televisions. LCD displays were even a major step above HD rear-projection sets that weighed well over
100 pounds ( 45.4 kilos). Now LEDs are poised to make a similar jump. While LCDs are far thinner and
lighter than massive rear-projection sets, they still use cold cathode fluorescent tubes to project a white
light onto the pixels that make up the screen. Those add weight and thickness to the television set. LEDs
solve both problems.
Have you ever seen a a gigantic flatscreen TV barely an inch thick? If you have, you've seen an LED
television. Here's where the acronyms get a bit confusing: those LED TVs are still LCD TVs, because the
screens themselves are comprised of liquid crystals. Technically, they're LED-backlit LCD TVs. Instead of
fluorescent tubes, LEDs shine light from behind the screen, illuminating the pixels to create an image.
Due to the small size and low power consumption of LEDs, LED-backlit TVs are far thinner than regular
LCD sets and are also more energy efficient. They can also provide a wider color gamut, producing more
vivid pictures.
Because LED TVs are still in their infancy, several different types of LED-blacklit sets are on the market -and not all LED TVs are created equal. Many sets use white LED edge lighting to shine light across the
display. The only real advantage afforded by these sets is thinness. RGB LED-backlit sets, on the other
hand, provide improved color. Some configurations even allow for a technique called local dimming,
where LEDs in different parts of the display can be brightened or dimmed independently to create a more
dynamic picture [source: LED Tele]. And that highlights one more great advantage of LEDs over compact
fluorescent lights: Because the LEDs can actually be instantly toggled on and off, they produce awesome
black levels in dark scenes. Since the white fluorescent lamps have to remain on during TV use, some
light tends to bleed through and lighten the picture in dark scenes.

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In the future, some of the most incredible uses of LEDs will actually come from organic light emitting
diodes, or OLEDs. The organic materials used to create these semiconductors are flexible, allowing
scientists to create bendable lights and displays. Someday, OLEDs will pave the way for the next
generation of TVs and smart phones -- can you imagine rolling your TV up like a poster and carrying it
with you anywhere?
How Semiconductors Work

Semiconductors have had a monumental impact on our society. You find semiconductors at the heart
of microprocessor chips as well as transistors. Anything that's computerized or uses radio waves depends
on semiconductors.
Today, most semiconductor chips and transistors are created with silicon. You may have heard
expressions like "Silicon Valley" and the "silicon economy," and that's why -- silicon is the heart of any
electronic device.
A diode is the simplest possible semiconductor device, and is therefore an excellent beginning point if
you want to understand how semiconductors work. In this article, you'll learn what a semiconductor is,
how doping works and how a diode can be created using semiconductors. But first, let's take a close look
at silicon.
Silicon is a very common element -- for example, it is the main element in sand and quartz. If you look
"silicon" up in the periodic table, you will find that it sits next to aluminum, below carbon and above
germanium.

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Silicon sits next to aluminum and below carbon in the periodic table.
Carbon, silicon and germanium (germanium, like silicon, is also a semiconductor) have a unique property
in their electron structure -- each has four electrons in its outer orbital. This allows them to form nice
crystals. The four electrons form perfect covalent bonds with four neighboring atoms, creating a lattice. In
carbon, we know the crystalline form as diamond. In silicon, the crystalline form is a silvery, metalliclooking substance.
In the next section, we will look at how we discovered the inside of the atom!

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Doping Silicon
You can change the behavior of silicon and turn it into a conductor by doping it. In doping, you mix a
small amount of an impurity into the silicon crystal.
There are two types of impurities:
N-type - In N-type doping ,phosphorus or arsenic is added to the silicon in small quantities. Phosphorus
and arsenic each have five outer electrons, so they're out of place when they get into the silicon lattice.
The fifth electron has nothing to bond to, so it's free to move around. It takes only a very small quantity of
the impurity to create enough free electrons to allow an electric current to flow through the silicon. N-type
silicon is a good conductor. Electrons have a negative charge, hence the name N-type.
P-type - In P-type doping, boron or gallium is the dopant. Boron and gallium each have only three outer
electrons. When mixed into the silicon lattice, they form "holes" in the lattice where a silicon electron has
nothing to bond to. The absence of an electron creates the effect of a positive charge, hence the name Ptype. Holes can conduct current. A hole happily accepts an electron from a neighbor, moving the hole over
a space. P-type silicon is a good conductor.
A minute amount of either N-type or P-type doping turns a silicon crystal from a good insulator into a
viable (but not great) conductor -- hence the name "semiconductor."

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N-type and P-type silicon are not that amazing by themselves; but when you put them together, you get
some very interesting behavior at the junction. That's what happens in a diode.
A diode is the simplest possible semiconductor device. A diode allows current to flow in one direction but
not the other. You may have seen turnstiles at a stadium or a subway station that let people go through in
only one direction. A diode is a one-way turnstile for electrons.
When you put N-type and P-type silicon together as shown in this diagram, you get a very interesting
phenomenon that gives a diode its unique properties.

Even though N-type silicon by itself is a conductor, and P-type silicon by itself is also a conductor, the
combination shown in the diagram does not conduct any electricity. The negative electrons in the N-type
silicon get attracted to the positive terminal of the battery. The positive holes in the P-type silicon get
attracted to the negative terminal of the battery. No current flows across the junction because the holes
and the electrons are each moving in the wrong direction.
If you flip the battery around, the diode conducts electricity just fine. The free electrons in the N-type
silicon are repelled by the negative terminal of the battery. The holes in the P-type silicon are repelled by
the positive terminal. At the junction between the N-type and P-type silicon, holes and free electrons
meet. The electrons fill the holes. Those holes and free electrons cease to exist, and new holes and
electrons spring up to take their place. The effect is that current flows through the junction.
In the next section we'll look at the uses for diodes and transistors.

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Diodes and Transistors

A device that blocks current in one direction while letting current flow in another direction is called a
diode. Diodes can be used in a number of ways. For example, a device that uses batteries often contains
a diode that protects the device if you insert the batteries backward. The diode simply blocks any current
from leaving the battery if it is reversed -- this protects the sensitive electronics in the device.
A semiconductor diode's behavior is not perfect, as shown in this graph:
When reverse-biased, an ideal diode would block all current. A real diode lets perhaps 10 micro amps
through -- not a lot, but still not perfect. And if you apply enough reverse voltage (V), the junction breaks
down and lets current through. Usually, the breakdown voltage is a lot more voltage than the circuit will
ever see, so it is irrelevant.
When forward-biased, there is a small amount of voltage necessary to get the diode going. In silicon,
this voltage is about 0.7 volts. This voltage is needed to start the hole-electron combination process at the
junction.
Another monumental technology that's related to the diode is the transistor. Transistors and diodes have a
lot in common.
Transistors
A transistor is created by using three layers rather than the two layers used in a diode. You can create
either an NPN or a PNP sandwich. A transistor can act as a switch or an amplifier.
A transistor looks like two diodes back-to-back. You'd imagine that no current could flow through a
transistor because back-to-back diodes would block current both ways. And this is true. However, when
you apply a small current to the center layer of the sandwich, a much larger current can flow through the

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sandwich as a whole. This gives a transistor its switching behavior. A small current can turn a larger
current on and off.
A silicon chip is a piece of silicon that can hold thousands of transistors. With transistors acting as
switches, you can create Boolean gates, and with Boolean gates you can create microprocessor chips.
The natural progression from silicon to doped silicon to transistors to chips is what has made
microprocessors and other electronic devices so inexpensive and ubiquitous in today's society. The
fundamental principles are surprisingly simple. The miracle is the constant refinement of those principles
to the point where, today, tens of millions of transistors can be inexpensively formed onto a single chip.
How Webcams Work

If you have been exploring the Web for any length of time, then you have run across any number
of Webcams in your travels. Webcams range from the silly to the serious -- a Webcam might point at a
coffee or a space shuttle launch pad. There are business cams, personal cams, private cams, traffic
cams... You name it and there's probably a Webcam pointed at it.
Have you ever considered setting up a Webcam yourself? You might want to create a funny Webcam by
pointing it at your hamster or putting it inside your refrigerator. But it turns out there are lots of productive
uses for Webcams, too. For example:

You will be out of town for a week and you want to keep an eye on your house.

You'd like to be able to check on the baby sitter and make sure everything is OK while you are at
work.

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You'd like to know what your dog does in the back yard all day.

You want to let the grandparents watch the new baby during nap time.

If there is something that you would like to monitor remotely, a Webcam makes it easy.
In this article, we will look at the steps you can take to put up your own simple Web camera.
The Basic Idea
Webcams, like most things, range from simple to complex. If you understand the essence of a simple
Webcam setup, increasing the complexity is only a matter of adding functionality through software,
custom code and/or equipment connections.
A simple Webcam setup consists of a digital camera attached to your computer, typically through
the USB port. The camera part of the Webcam setup is just a digital camera -- there's really nothing
special going on there. The "Webcam" nature of the camera comes with the software. Webcam software
"grabs a frame" from the digital camera at a preset interval (for example, the software might grab a still
image from the camera once every 30 seconds) and transfers it to another location for viewing. If you're
interested in using your Webcam for streaming video, you'll want a Webcam system with a high frame
rate. Frame rate indicates the number of pictures the software can grab and transfer in one second. For
streaming video, you need a minimum rate of at least 15 frames per second (fps), and 30 fps is ideal. To
achieve high frame rates, you need a high-speed Internet connection.
Once it captures a frame, the software broadcasts the image over your Internet connection. There are
several broadcast methods. Using the most common method, the software turns that image into a JPEG
file and uploads it to a Web server using File Transfer Protocol (FTP). You can easily place a JPEG image
on any Web page (for information on creating Web pages and adding JPEG images, see How Web
Pages Work).
If you don't have your own Web server, lots of companies offer you a free place to upload your images,
saving you the trouble of having to set up and maintain a Web server or a hosted Web site.
What You Need
In order to create a simple Webcam, you need three things:

A camera of some sort connected to your computer

A piece of software that can grab a frame from the camera periodically

A way to broadcast your images on the Web

If you have your own Web server and Web site, you already have a way to post your Webcam images on
the Web. At its most basic, a Web server is simply a piece of hardware that has the ability to deliver Webbased content to a Web browser. For some people, their home computer serves as their Web server. If

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that's the case, a camera, a piece of software and your PC are all that you need. If you want to use a Web
server that's hosted elsewhere (for example, if you're paying an ASP to host your Web server), you also
need:

The ability to move frames from your computer to the Web server, typically by File Transfer
Protocol(FTP). For most Web servers, this is no problem; but occasionally, a hosting company
will have policies in place that make this difficult.

A relatively consistent connection between your computer and the Internet.

A modem connection to an ISP is fine if it is something that you keep connected most of the time,
which implies that you have a dedicated phone line for your computer. If you have something like
a cable modem that is connected all the time, that's perfect.

If you don't have a Web server or a Web site, and you don't want one, you can simply have someone else
maintain your Webcam images. Lots of Webcam software comes complete with Web-based image
access. They usually offer different access options, including remote access, which utilizes UDP
protocol to transfer your Webcam images directly from your computer to another computer. This can be
done:

via Web browser, in which case the software itself establishes its own HTTP server so anyone
using a Web browser can access the Webcam images on your PC

via traditional FTP upload to a remote Web server

By using this type of service, you avoid having to host and/or maintain your own Web site. If you are using
one of these services and you want the image to refresh itself constantly, you need a relatively consistent
connection between your computer and the Internet. If your connection is not consistent, it won't hurt
anything. It just means that the image won't always be up to date.
Setting It Up
In order to experiment with Webcams and go through the process of setting one up, got itself a Webcam.
To set it up, here is what we did:
1. We went down to the local computer warehouse and bought the Intel Pro Video PC Camera.
2. We installed the software for the camera on a Windows XP machine.
3. We went to the Web site www.webcam32.com and downloaded a program called Webcam32.
This is a popular software package for Webcams. You can get a free demo version or pay $39.95
for the full version. We went ahead and paid for a registered copy. (The complete user's manual
for this product is available on the Web site. Check it out to see the wide array of features
available on today's Webcam software.)
4. We installed Webcam32. It was a very easy installation.

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5. After entering the address of the FTP site and a couple of other pieces of information, the
Webcam showed its first signs of life!
6. We pointed the camera out the window.
7. We then tuned the software a bit to reduce the file size of the images and to enable
the temporary-file copying feature.
There are many different features you can experiment with in Webcam32: streaming video, chat,
captions, AVI files and different resolutions and compression ratios, to name a few. Webcam32 also
supports the AutoCam feature, which allows you to create a Web page for your Webcam for free on the
company's server. The software makes it simple.
As you can see, setting up a basic Webcam is extremely easy. If nothing else, the setup described here is
a fun, inexpensive and simple way to experiment with a Webcam and see what you can do with one of
your own!
Advanced Features
Once you manage the simple system, you can look into other Webcam features and settings like:

Motion sensing - The Webcam takes a new picture when it detects motion.

Image archiving - You can create an archive that saves all of your Webcam images or only
certain images at pre-set intervals.

Video messaging - Some instant messenger programs support Webcam video.

Advanced connections - Use wired or wireless methods to connect your home-theater A/V
equipment to your Webcam.

Automation - Robotic cameras let you set a series of pan/tilt positions and program framecapture settings based on the position of the camera.

Streaming media - For professional applications, a Webcam setup can use MPEG4
compression to achieve true streaming audio and video (this is the compression system used in
most of the popular PC-based media players).

Custom coding - Import your own computer code to tell the Webcam what to do.

One example of custom coding is a set of commands that makes a Webcam image automatically
refresh. The simple Webcam system we've set up in this article produces a static image. Users have to
refresh the image manually (by pushing the Refresh button in the browser) if they want to see any
changes. There are three different techniques you can use to create automatic refreshing:

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You can add a meta tag to the HTML for the page so that the page refreshes at some frequency.
The tag to add is: <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="30"> The "30" is the number of
seconds between each refresh and can be set to anything you like. The entire page will reload
every 30 seconds, so it is beneficial to keep the page short.

You can add a Java applet to your site. The Webcam32 and Java Applets page explains how to
obtain and install the free applet. The applet is a program that automatically fetches the image
periodically. The advantage is that only the image refreshes, not the entire page. Most browsers
support Java applets, so most of your viewers will have no problem.

You can use JavaScript, as demonstrated on The JavaScript Source: Refresh (look at the source
code on this page). You can also check out How Java Works for a detailed look at Java
programming.

Webcam Networking
One problem with using a camera hooked to a computer via a USB cable is the limited cable length.
What if the room you want to capture is at the other end of the house, or outside? In that case, you need
to purchase a camera with external connections. You have a few options:

You can place a standard camera anywhere in the house and run a video cable with RCA jacks
on it from the camera to the computer. There are all sorts of places on the Web that sell
small pinhole video cameras, either on their own or embedded in things like clocks and smoke
detectors. You can find small security cameras for less than $100. avoid the cable by using
a radio , an Ethernet connection or a Wi-Fi setup. If you already have a home network,
connecting an external Webcam to your computer probably won't require any additional
networking.

Monitoring your home and sharing images via the Web are only a couple of the things you can do with
your Webcam. There are any number of ways to make use of a camera that's connected to your
computer. You can get software that will let you make video phone calls with a friend who also has a
Webcam. You can hold a video-conferencing session with business associates on the other side of the
world. You can conduct a video interview and broadcast it live on your blog. Some Webcam software will
even deliver images directly to your Web-enabled PDA or smartphone. Other products let you connect
your camcorder to your Webcam setup so you can let everybody watch your vacation footage via the
Internet. The possibilities are endless.

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