Capacitors and potential difference

[Fletcher]

My physics textbook kinda offhandly says capacitors can be charged to higher potential differences than the battery used to charge them and uses a camera flash as an example, however it doesn't say how this is done. What it does say is attaching a capacitor to a batter in a simple circuit will charge the capacitor to the same potential as the battery.

 

[berkeman]

To get the higher voltage, the camera flash circuit uses a DC-DC converter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dc-dc_converter

 

[vanesch]

My physics textbook kinda offhandly says capacitors can be charged to higher potential differences than the battery used to charge them and uses a camera flash as an example, however it doesn't say how this is done. What it does say is attaching a capacitor to a batter in a simple circuit will charge the capacitor to the same potential as the battery.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voltage_multiplier

 

[brouser]

A boost circuit that uses an inductor, a switch (transistor), a diode, and the capacitor can boost a couple of volts to a couple of thousand volts or any where in between. I suspect this is what a flash uses. There are lots of example circuits you can look up and their complexity and cost are a function of the application...pennies to thousands of dollars for milli watts(volts) to Megawatts(volts)