Dielectric Polarization and leakage effects?

[HMS-776]

When the dielectric in a capacitor polarizes does it effect the leakage current through the dielectric?

Just wondering, if you had a capacitor with a lossy dielectric and you were able to polarize the dielectric would the leakage current drop?

Can anyone give me any links for further reading on this subject?

 

[yungman]

My understanding is the polarization of the dielectric has nothing to do with leakage of the dielectric. dielectric is material that the outer shell electrons are being held tight to the nucleus and are not free to move. Under the E field, the nucleus move a little to the -ve side and the electrons move a little to the +ve side of the E field and form a dipole. that has nothing to do with whether it has any leakage or not.

ALL Dielectric polarize in the presence of external E but some has more loss( leakage) some has less.

Electromagnetic textbook do talk about this. But they are usually not very good in explaining this.

 

[jamiek]

If there are mineral impurities that conduct electricity, or contaminants, it could cause leakage and/or reduce the dielectric breakdown level of the fluid being used as the dielectric.

I wonder if why some capacitors blow up like balloons is because of dielectric breakdown causing some gas to be formed in the capacitor causing it to blow up and expand.. this is just pure speculation and not proven. There were some computers out there that had to be recalled due to blown up capacitors.