[sdiy] .01uf Silver Mica

[Ian Fritz]

At 09:01 PM 1/24/06, harrybissell wrote:
>OK I could see that difference.
>
>I'm equally confused.  Certainly what I'm talking about is
>'soakage'
>
>I think that Bob Pease wrote about it in one of his columns.
>It would be like having a 100 uf cap... with a 1M resistor to
>a 10uF...etc...
>
>Short out the 100uF and the voltage goes to zero... but unless
>you wait a very long time... the 10uF will not discharge. If you remove
>the
>short... the 10uF cap will bleed back into the 100uF and recharge it.

Right, this is "soakage" or "memory", as I understand the 
terminology.  Some of the electric dipoles in the material are (semi) 
permanently realigned along the E-field direction.


>I think maybe dielectric absorption as your describing is more like
>dielectric losses.  The energy is lost as heat, and does not ever
>come back.

Yes, exactly.  "Dielectric absorption" and "dielectric loss"  are 
equivalent terms for the same thing as far as I know.


>Its pretty complex. The memory (soakage) can cause massive errors in
>S/H circuits.  The losses are more an issue at high frequencies
>(as you say)... and I'd think higher frequencies than we usually play
>at

IIRC the audiophiles have observed these effects at audio frequency as a 
source of distortion.

   Ian