There are other methods to measure the dielectric constant.
You can place the material inside a waveguide or transmission line and
measure the power reflected from sample and the power transmitted through
the sample. From this you can obtain the dielectric constant.
Another method is to place the material inside a resonant cavity. Through
measurements of the change of the Q of the cavity and the change in the
center frequency of the resonance, you can obtain the dielectric constant.
Steven T. Ratliff
Associate Professor of Physics
Northwestern College
3003 Snelling Ave. N.
St. Paul, MN 55113-1598
U. S. A.
Internet: str@nwc.edu (or stratliff@nwc.edu)
Larry Smith <Larry.Smith@SNOW.EDU>
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01/29/01 11:02 PM
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Subject: dielectric constant
We are doing capacitors this week and a student asked how the dielectric
constant, \kappa, is determined for different materials. Is it just
empirically determined by what factor the capacitance is increased when
inserted in a parallel plate capacitor?