Re: capacitor
Sceadwian,
Your point is well taken with respect to solid tantalum capacitors. I would also add the restriction that current limiting be employed. An interesting phenomenon occurs when solid tantalum capacitors are employed "back-to-back" to form a non-polarized capacitor. When the applied voltage is less than a critical value, which varies from process to process, the result is a capacitor with capacitance = C/2, as would be expected with other types. When the voltage is increased beyond the critical value where the "diode" effect (mentioned in the cited paper) occurs, the reversed capacitor acts as more-or less a short circuit, and the capacitance becomes C. No harm is done because the forward biased capacitor limits the current to a safe level.
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Neither wet-slug capacitors nor aluminum electrolytics can be operated in the reverse-bias condition, even at low voltages, without severe and rapid degradation.
Regards,
Kral