The Curie–von Schweidler law refers to the response of
dielectric
In electromagnetism, a dielectric (or dielectric medium) is an electrical insulator that can be polarised by an applied electric field. When a dielectric material is placed in an electric field, electric charges do not flow through the mate ...
material to the step input of a direct current (DC) voltage first observed by
Jacques Curie
Jacques Curie (29 October 1855 – 19 February 1941) was a French physicist and professor of mineralogy at the University of Montpellier. Along with his younger brother, Pierre Curie, he studied pyroelectricity in the 1880s, leading to their di ...
and Egon Ritter von Schweidler.
Overview
According to this law, the current decays according to a power law:
:
where
is the current at a given charging time,
, and
is the decay constant such that