Active device: Encyclopedia - Active device

Active device

An electrical circuit consists of various components or devices or elements, which may be active or passive. Active devices are sources of energy, converting between forms of energy: chemical, hydraulic, thermal energy, mechanical , nuclear, solar, etc, into electrical energy, driving electrical current around the circuit and hence delivering continuous energy to it.

All electrical devices which consume rather than produce energy are called passive devices, like resistors, inductors and capacitors.

Category: Electronics

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Active device", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki