Arjit Srivastava
Last Activity: 14 Years ago
An inductor is an electrical component that can store energy in a magnetic field created by the electric current passing through it. An inductor's ability to store magnetic energy is measured by its inductance, in units of henries. Typically an inductor is a conducting wire shaped as a coil, the loops helping to create a strong magnetic field inside the coil due to Ampere's Law. Due to the time-varying magnetic field inside the coil, a voltage is induced, according to Faraday's law of electromagnetic induction, which by Lenz's Law opposes the change in current that created it.
Inductors are one of the basic electronic components used in electronics where current and voltage change with time, due to the ability of inductors to delay and reshape alternating currents.
Here's a list of a few typical uses for inductors: energy storage/filter in switching regulators, RF coils for filtering and oscillators, EMI suppression in electronic circuits, crossover filters for speakers.