This article is about transformers as used in electrical and electronics applications. For other meanings, see Transformers.

Those credited with the invention of the transformer include:

Michael Faraday, who invented an 'induction ring' on August 29 1831. This was the first transformer, although Faraday used it only to demonstrate the principle of electromagnetic induction and did not foresee the use to which it would eventually be put.

Lucien Gaulard and John Dixon Gibbs, who first exhibited a device called a 'secondary generator' in London in 1881 and then sold the idea to American company Westinghouse. This may have been the first practical power transformer. They also exhibited the invention in Turin in 1884, where it was adopted for an electric lighting system. Their early devices used an open iron core, which was soon abandoned in favour of a more efficient circular core with a closed magnetic path.

William Stanley, an engineer for Westinghouse, who built the first practical device in 1885 after George Westinghouse bought Gaulard and Gibbs' patents. The core was made from interlocking E-shaped iron plates. This design was first used commercially in 1886.

Hungarian engineers Károly Zipernowsky, Ottó Bláthy and Miksa Déri at the Ganz company in Budapest in 1885, who created the efficient "ZBD" model based on the design by Gaulard and Gibbs.

Nikola Tesla in 1891 invented the Tesla coil, which is a high-voltage, air-core, dual-tuned resonant transformer for generating very high voltages at high frequency.

The transformer is one of the simplest of electrical devices, yet transformer designs and materials continue to be improved. Transformers are essential for high voltage power transmission, which makes long distance transmission economically practical. This advantage was the principal factor in the selection of alternating current power transmission in the "War of Currents" in the late 1880s.

Audio frequency transformers (at the time called repeating coils) were used by the earliest experimenters in the development of the telephone. While some electronics applications of the transformer have been made obsolete by new technologies, transformers are still found in many electronic devices.

Transformers come in a range of sizes from a thumbnail-sized coupling transformer hidden inside a stage microphone to huge gigawatt units used to interconnect large portions of national power grids. All operate with the same basic principles and with many similarities in their parts.

Transformers alone cannot do the following:

Convert DC to AC or vice versa

Change the voltage or current of DC

Change the AC supply frequency.

Standard symbols

	Transformer with two windings and iron core.
	Transformer with three windings. The dots show the relative winding configuration of the windings.
	Step-down or step-up transformer. The symbol shows which winding has more turns, but does not usually show the exact ratio.
	Transformer with electrostatic screen, which prevents capacitive coupling between the windings.

Transformers for use at power or audio frequencies have cores made of many thin laminations of silicon steel. By concentrating the magnetic flux, more of it is usefully linked by both primary and secondary windings. Since the steel core is conductive, it, too, has currents induced in it by the changing magnetic flux. Each layer is insulated from the adjacent layer to reduce the energy lost to eddy current heating of the core. The thin laminations are used to reduce the eddy currents, and the insulation is used to keep the laminations from acting as a solid piece of steel. The thinner the laminations, the lower the eddy currents, and the lower the losses. Very thin laminations are generally used on high frequency transformers. The cost goes up when using thinner laminations mainly over the labor in stacking them. A typical laminated core is made from E-shaped and I-shaped pieces, leading to the name "EI transformer". There are other types, such as the C-core or "cut core" transformer. In the EI transformer, the laminations are stacked in what is known as an interleaved fashion. This is where the E and I pieces are staggered while stacking to reduce any gap. If an air gap is needed, all the E's are stacked on one side, and all the I's on the other creating a gap.

The cut core or C-core is made by winding a silicon steel strip around a rectangular form. After the required thickness is achieved, it is removed from the form and the laminations are bonded together. It is then cut in two forming two C shapes. The faces of the cuts are then ground smooth so they fit very tight with a very small gap to reduce losses. To use a C-core, a coil is wound which is then placed over a leg of one half of the core. The core is then assembled by placing the two C halves together, and holding them closed by a steel strap. In this type of core, the coil will be on one leg, and the other is bare. There is shell type cores available which are similar to the EI cores.

A steel core's remanence means that it retains a static magnetic field when power is removed. When power is then reapplied, the residual field will cause a high inrush current until the effect of the remanent magnetism is reduced, usually after a few cycles of the applied alternating current. Overcurrent protection devices such as fuses must be selected to allow this harmless inrush to pass. On transformers connected to long overhead power transmission lines, induced currents due to geomagnetic disturbances during solar storms can cause saturation of the core, and false operation of transformer protection devices.

Distribution transformers can achieve low off-load losses by using cores made with low loss high permeability silicon steel and amorphous (non-crystalline) steel, so-called "metal glasses" — the high cost of the core material is offset by the lower losses incurred at light load, over the life of the transformer. In order to maintain good voltage regulation, distribution transformers are designed to have very low leakage inductance.

Certain special purpose transformers use long magnetic paths, insert air gaps, or add magnetic shunts (which bypass a portion of magnetic flux that would otherwise link the primary and secondary windings) in order to intentionally add leakage inductance. The additional leakage inductance limits the secondary winding's short circuit current to a safe, or a controlled, level. This technique is used to stabilize the output current for loads that exhibit negative resistance such as electric arcs, mercury vapor lamps, and neon signs, or safely handle loads that may become periodically short-circuited such as electric arc welders. Gaps are also used to keep a transformer from saturating, especially audio transformers which have a DC component added.

Toroidal transformers are built around a ring-shaped core, which is made from a long strip of silicon steel or permalloy wound into a coil, from powdered iron, or ferrite, depending on operating frequency. The strip construction ensures that the grain boundaries are optimally aligned, improving the transformer's efficiency by reducing the core's reluctance. The closed ring shape eliminates air gaps inherent in the construction of an EI core. The cross-section of the ring is usually square or rectangular, but more expensive cores with circular cross-sections are also available. The primary and secondary coils are often wound concentrically to cover the entire surface of the core. This minimises the length of wire needed, and also provides screening to minimize the core's magnetic field from generating electromagnetic interference.

Ferrite toroid cores are used at higher frequencies, typically between a few tens of kilohertz to a megahertz, to reduce losses, physical size, and weight of switch-mode power supplies.

Toroidal transformers are more efficient than the cheaper laminated EI types of similar power level. Other advantages, compared to EI types, include smaller size (about half), lower weight (about half), less mechanical hum (making them superior in audio amplifiers), lower exterior magnetic field (about one tenth), low off-load losses (making them more efficient in standby circuits), single-bolt mounting, and more choice of shapes. This last point means that, for a given power output, either a wide, flat toroid or a tall, narrow one with the same electrical properties can be chosen, depending on the space available. The main disadvantages are higher cost and limited size.

A drawback of toroidal transformer construction is the higher cost of windings. As a consequence, toroidal transformers are uncommon above ratings of a few kVA. Small distribution transformers may achieve some of the benefits of a toroidal core by splitting it and forcing it open, then inserting a bobbin containing primary and secondary windings.

When fitting a toroidal transformer, it is important to avoid making an unintentional short-circuit through the core. This can happen if the steel mounting bolt in the middle of the core is allowed to touch metalwork at both ends, making a loop of conductive material which passes through the hole in the toroid. Such a loop could result in a dangerously large current flowing in the bolt.

Small signal transformers do not generate significant amounts of heat. Power transformers rated up to a few kilowatts rely on natural convective air cooling. Specific provision must be made for cooling of high-power transformers. Transformers handling higher power, or having a high duty cycle can be fan-cooled.

Some dry transformers are enclosed in pressurized tanks and are cooled by nitrogen or sulfur hexafluoride gas.

The windings of high-power or high-voltage transformers are immersed in transformer oil — a highly-refined mineral oil, that is stable at high temperatures. Large transformers to be used indoors must use a non-flammable liquid. Formerly, polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) was used as it was not a fire hazard in indoor power transformers and it is highly stable. Due to the stability and toxic effects of PCB byproducts, and its accumulation in the environment, it is no longer permitted in new equipment. Old transformers which still contain PCB should be examined on a weekly basis for leakage. If found to be leaking, it should be changed out, and professionally decontaminated or scrapped in an environmentally safe manner. Today, nontoxic, stable silicone-based oils, or fluorinated hydrocarbons may be used where the expense of a fire-resistant liquid offsets additional building cost for a transformer vault. Other less-flammable fluids such as canola oil may be used but all fire resistant fluids have some drawbacks in performance, cost, or toxicity compared with mineral oil.

The oil cools the transformer, and provides part of the electrical insulation between internal live parts. It has to be stable at high temperatures so that a small short or arc will not cause a breakdown or fire. The oil-filled tank may have radiators through which the oil circulates by natural convection. Very large or high-power transformers (with capacities of millions of watts) may have cooling fans, oil pumps and even oil to water heat exchangers. Oil-filled transformers undergo prolonged drying processes, using vapor-phase heat transfer, electrical self-heating, the application of a vacuum, or combinations of these, to ensure that the transformer is completely free of water vapor before the cooling oil is introduced. This helps prevent electrical breakdown under load.

Oil-filled power transformers may be equipped with Buchholz relays which are safety devices that sense gas build-up inside the transformer (a side effect of an electric arc inside the windings), and thus switches off the transformer.

Experimental power transformers in the 2 MVA range have been built with superconducting windings which eliminates the copper losses, but not the core steel loss. These are cooled by liquid nitrogen or helium.

A current transformer is a type of "instrument transformer" that is designed to provide a current in its secondary which is accurately proportional to the current flowing in its primary.

Current transformers (CTs) are commonly used in metering and protective relaying in the electrical power industry where they facilitate the safe measurement of large currents, often in the presence of high voltages. The current transformer safely isolates measurement and control circuitry from the high voltages typically present on the circuit being measured.

Current transformers are often constructed by passing a single primary turn (either an insulated cable or an uninsulated bus bar) through a well-insulated toroidal core wrapped with many turns of wire. Current transformers are used extensively for measuring current and monitoring the operation of the power grid. The CT is typically described by its current ratio from primary to secondary. Common secondaries are 1 or 5 amperes. For example, a 4000:5 CT would provide an output current of 5 amperes when the primary was passing 4000 amperes. The secondary winding can be single ratio or multi ratio, with five taps being common for multi ratio CTs. Typically, the secondary connection points are labeled as X1, X2 and so on. The multi ratio CTs are typically used for current matching in current differential protective relaying applications. Often, multiple CTs will be installed as a "stack" for various uses (for example, protection devices and revenue metering may use separate CTs). For a three-stacked CT application, the secondary winding connection points are typically labeled Xn, Yn, Zn. Care must be taken that the secondary of a current transformer is not disconnected from its load while current is flowing in the primary, as this will produce a dangerously high voltage across the open secondary.

Specially constructed wideband current transformers are also used (usually with an oscilloscope) to measure waveforms of high frequency or pulsed currents within pulsed power systems. One type of specially constructed wideband transformer provides a voltage output that is proportional to the measured current. Another type (called a Rogowski coil) requires an external integrator in order to provide a voltage output that is proportional to the measured current. Unlike CTs used for power circuitry, wideband CT's are rated in output volts per ampere of primary current.

Audio transformers are usually the factor which limit sound quality; electronic circuits with wide frequency response and low distortion are relatively simple to design.

Transformers are also used in DI boxes to convert impedance from high-impedance instruments (for example, bass guitars) to enable them to be connected to a microphone input on the mixing console.

A particularly critical component is the output transformer of an audio power amplifier. Valve circuits for quality reproduction have long been produced with no other (inter-stage) audio transformers, but an output transformer is needed to couple the relatively high impedance (up to a few hundred ohms depending upon configutation) of the output valve(s) to the low impedance of a loudspeaker. (The valves can deliver a low current at a high voltage; the speakers require high current at low voltage.) Solid-state power amplifiers may need no output transformer at all.

For good low-frequency response a relatively large iron core is required; high power handling increases the required core size. Good high-frequency response requires carefully designed and implemented windings without excessive leakage inductance or stray capacitance. All this makes for an expensive component.

Output transformerless audio power valve amplifiers are possible, but were rarely used due to other disadvantages.

Early transistor audio power amplifiers often had output transformers, but they were eliminated as designers discovered how to design amplifiers without them.