Dielectric Absorption and Theories of Dielectric Behavior

The first report of the Committee on Electrical Insulation of the Division of Engineering and Industrial Research of the National Research Council laid a plan for a review of existing data and information and its coordination, looking to a comprehensive plan of experimental attack. The whole field was divided into a number of divisions which have since been assigned to several groups of investigators. The present paper constitutes the second report of the Committee on Electrical Insulation, and in accordance with the plan. described presents the results of an extensive review of the literature on dielectric absorption and theories of dielectric behavior. The paper presents brirfly the fundamental classical theory of dielectrics as based on the work of Cavendisha, Faraday and Maxwell, and devotes its principal attention to the anomalies salies or departures from that theory. The principal experimental facts of anomalous behavior under continuous potential are reviewed and classified, together with the various theories proposed to account for them. These theories are divided into four classes: (1) those in which the fundamental magnetic equations are retained and the anomalies attributed to anomalies of the structure of the dielectric, (2) those in which the anomalies are attributed to special laws of dielectric displacement, without explanation of underlying mechanism, (3) those in which explanation of displacement and its anomalies is traced to the motion of electrons within the atom, and (4) those invoking anomalies of conductivity in explanation of dielectric behavior.