Capacitance is a fundamental electrical property that describes the ability of a capacitor to store electric charge when a voltage is applied across its terminals. In other words, it measures the amount of electric charge that can be stored in a capacitor for a given voltage. Capacitance is represented by the letter "C" and is defined mathematically as:
Capacitance (C) = Electric Charge (Q) / Voltage (V)
The unit of measurement for capacitance is the farad (F), named after the English physicist Michael Faraday. One farad is equal to one coulomb of electric charge stored in a capacitor per volt of applied voltage. However, the farad is a relatively large unit for most practical applications, so you will often encounter subunits such as microfarads (μF), nanofarads (nF), and picofarads (pF) for smaller capacitance values. The relationships between these subunits and the farad are as follows:
1 farad (F) = 1,000,000 microfarads (μF)
1 farad (F) = 1,000 nanofarads (nF)
1 farad (F) = 1,000,000,000 picofarads (pF)