DETERMINATION OF AN ABSOLUTE SCALE OF CAPACITANCE

In the past decade or two, the measurement of capacitance has become of much greater importance in many fields of scientific and technological investigation as well as forming the basis of many production applications. The capabilities of the capacitance measuring techniques available are of great importance, and the measurement and maintenance of an absolute scale of capacitance has become of prime importance. In the National Research Council of Canada, the absolute unit of capacitance is now known with an accuracy better than ±0.0005%, with the capability of scaling the unit of capacitance over six decades of capacitance both above and below 1 pf (1 × 10−12 f) without introducing an additional indeterminacy any greater than ±0.0005% or ±0.3 af (af = attofarad = 10−18 f).