Relative permittivity

The relative permittivity (in older texts, dielectric constant) is the permittivity of a material expressed as a ratio with the electric permittivity of a vacuum. A dielectric is an insulating material, and the dielectric constant of an insulator measures the ability of the insulator to store electric energy in an electrical field.

Permittivity is a material's property that affects the Coulomb force between two point charges in the material. Relative permittivity is the factor by which the electric field between the charges is decreased relative to vacuum.

Likewise, relative permittivity is the ratio of the capacitance of a capacitor using that material as a dielectric, compared with a similar capacitor that has vacuum as its dielectric. Relative permittivity is also commonly known as the dielectric constant, a term still used but deprecated by standards organizations in engineering as well as in chemistry.

Relative permittivity is typically denoted as ε_r(ω) (sometimes κ, lowercase kappa) and is defined as

where ε(ω) is the complex frequency-dependent permittivity of the material, and ε₀ is the vacuum permittivity.

Relative permittivity is a dimensionless number that is in general complex-valued; its real and imaginary parts are denoted as:

The relative permittivity of a medium is related to its electric susceptibility, χ_e, as ε_r(ω) = 1 + χ_e.

In anisotropic media (such as non cubic crystals) the relative permittivity is a second rank tensor.