The properties of tantalum oxide in electrolytic capacitors

The tantalum electrolytic capacitor can be considered as a parallel plate capacitor in which tantalum metal is one electrode, a tantalum oxide film is the dielectric, and the tantalum oxide/electrolyte boundary is the other electrode. This model is useful for many purposes, although it is obviously oversimplified and does not take into account such phenomena as the assymetry of the system with regard to the effect of applied voltage, and neglects important parameters in the practical design of these capacitors.