Niobium capacitor
The development of solid electrolyte tantalum capacitors began in the early 1950s as a miniaturized, more reliable low-voltage support capacitor to complement the newly invented transistor. The solution found by R. L. Taylor and H. E. Haring of the Bell Labs was based on experience with ceramics. They ground down tantalum to a powder, pressed this powder into a cylindrical form and then sintered the powder particles into a pellet (“slug”) at high temperatures, between 1500 and 2000 °C, under vacuum conditions. These first sintered tantalum capacitors used a non-solid electrolyte not consistent with the concept of solid state electronics. 1952 a targeted search in the Bell Labs for a solid electrolyte by D. A. McLean and F. S. Power led to the invention of manganese dioxide as a solid electrolyte for a sintered tantalum capacitor.
Capacitor
In October 1745, Ewald Georg von Kleist of Pomerania, Germany, found that charge could be stored by connecting a high-voltage electrostatic generator by a wire to a volume of water in a hand-held glass jar. Von Kleist's hand and the water acted as conductors, and the jar as a dielectric (although details of the mechanism were incorrectly identified at the time). Von Kleist found that touching the wire resulted in a powerful spark, much more painful than that obtained from an electrostatic machine. The following year, the Dutch physicist Pieter van Musschenbroek invented a similar capacitor, which was named the Leyden jar, after the University of Leiden where he worked. He also was impressed by the power of the shock he received, writing, "I would not take a second shock for the kingdom of France."