Parallel plate capacitors consist of two conducting plates separated by a certain distance. However, it is mechanically difficult to hold the large plates parallel to each other without actual contact. Hence, a dielectric layer is commonly placed between the plates, which provides an easy solution for holding the plates together with a small gap and increases the capacitance of the capacitor.
Dielectrics are non-conducting materials with no free or loosely bound electrons. When a dielectric is...

When an electric field passes from one homogeneous medium to another, crossing the boundary between the two mediums imparts a discontinuity in the electric field. This results in electrostatic boundary conditions that depend on the type of mediums the field propagates through.
Consider a case where both the mediums across a boundary are two different dielectric materials. Recall that the electric field and electric displacement are proportional and related through the material's...

The presence of a dielectric medium in a capacitor not only changes the voltage and capacitance but also affects the electric field. In general, dielectrics can be of two types: polar and nonpolar. In a polar dielectric, the positive and negative charges in the molecules are separated by a distance and hence have a permanent dipole moment. In contrast, no such charge separation exists in a nonpolar dielectric, however the nonpolar molecules get polarized in the presence of an external electric...