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Note: Items in red are measurements that must be made as you do the experiment.

Introduction

You will construct two parallel plate capacitors using large metal plates and use a digital capacitance meter to measure the capacitance of each one while filled with air and while filled with an insulating sheet of dielectric material.  You will use the parallel-plate capacitance formula, Eq. 1, to predict the air-filled capacitance and also to determine the dielectric constant of the insulating sheets that you select. Eq. 1

Capacitance in Air:

Choose two different types of dielectric material from the available collection and select one sheet of each type.  Build an air-filled, parallel plate capacitor for each dielectric type by stacking two metal plates on top of each other separated only by small spacers of the same dielectric material.  Call the two capacitors C₁ and C₂.  Measure the areas of the plates and the thicknesses of the spacers used.  Record these values and use them to calculate the air-filled capacitances C₁ and C₂.  Use the parallel plate capacitor equation.  Now measure both capacitances using the meter provided.  Record your results below.