How does the surface charge density of a parallel-plate capacitor change when the plates are not exactly parallel?

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Jasmine Grover

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When the plates of a parallel-plate capacitor are not exactly parallel, the surface charge density of the capacitor will not be uniform.

  • Specifically, the charge density will be higher at the end of the plates that are closer together and lower at the end of the plates that are further apart.
  • Despite this non-uniform distribution of charge density, each plate of the capacitor will have the same potential at each point.

This is because the electric field between the plates will be perpendicular to the surface of the plates, and any difference in charge density will be compensated by a difference in electric potential.

Parallel plate capacitor

However, it's worth noting that the capacitance of the capacitor will be affected by the non-parallelism of the plates, and will be lower than that of a parallel-plate capacitor with perfectly parallel plates.

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