The permittivity of liquid water in the radio frequency and microwave regions can be represented by the Debye equation (Refs. 1 and 2):
where ε = ε´ + i ε˝ is the (complex) relative permittivity (i.e., the absolute permittivity divided by the permittivity of free space ε0 = 8.854·10–12 F m–1). Here εs is the static permittivity (see Ref. 3 and the table “Thermophysical Properties of Water and Steam” in this section); ε∞ is a parameter describing the permittivity in the high-frequency limit; τ is the relaxation time for molecular orientation; and ω = 2πf is the angular frequency. The values in Table 2 have been calculated from parameters given in Ref. 2, as shown in Table 1. Column definitions for Table 2 are as follows.
Column heading | Definition |
Frequency | Frequency, in kHz, MHz, or GHz |
ε´ (temperature) | Real part of the relative permittiviy at the indicated temperature in °C |
ε˝ (temperature) | Imaginary part of the relative permittivity at the indicated temperature in °C |
Other useful quantities that can be calculated from the values in the table are the loss tangent:
tan δ = ε"/ε'
and the absorption coefficient α which describes the power attenuation per unit length (P = P0e–αl):
and c is the speed of light. The last equation is valid when ε˝/ε´<<1.
0 °C | 25 °C | 50 °C | |
ε∞ | 5.7 | 5.2 | 4.0 |
τ/ps | 17.67 | 8.27 | 4.75 |
Frequency | ε´ (0 °C) | ε˝ (0 °C) | ε´ (25 °C) | ε˝ (25 °C) | ε´ (50 °C) | ε˝ (50 °C) | |
Water | 0 | 87.90 | 0.00 | 78.36 | 0.00 | 69.88 | 0.00 |
Water | 1 kHz | 87.90 | 0.00 | 78.36 | 0.00 | 69.88 | 0.00 |
Water | 1 MHz | 87.90 | 0.01 | 78.36 | 0.00 | 69.88 | 0.00 |
Water | 10 MHz | 87.90 | 0.09 | 78.36 | 0.04 | 69.88 | 0.02 |
Water | 100 MHz | 87.89 | 0.91 | 78.36 | 0.38 | 69.88 | 0.20 |
Water | 200 MHz | 87.86 | 1.82 | 78.35 | 0.76 | 69.88 | 0.39 |
Water | 500 MHz | 87.65 | 4.55 | 78.31 | 1.90 | 69.87 | 0.98 |
Water | 1 GHz | 86.90 | 9.01 | 78.16 | 3.79 | 69.82 | 1.96 |
Water | 2 GHz | 84.04 | 17.39 | 77.58 | 7.52 | 69.65 | 3.92 |
Water | 3 GHz | 79.69 | 24.64 | 76.62 | 11.13 | 69.36 | 5.85 |
Water | 4 GHz | 74.36 | 30.49 | 75.33 | 14.58 | 68.95 | 7.75 |
Water | 5 GHz | 68.54 | 34.88 | 73.73 | 17.81 | 68.45 | 9.62 |
Water | 10 GHz | 42.52 | 40.88 | 62.81 | 29.93 | 64.49 | 18.05 |
Water | 20 GHz | 19.56 | 30.78 | 40.37 | 36.55 | 52.57 | 28.99 |
Water | 30 GHz | 12.50 | 22.64 | 26.53 | 33.25 | 40.57 | 32.74 |
Water | 40 GHz | 9.67 | 17.62 | 18.95 | 28.58 | 31.17 | 32.43 |
Water | 50 GHz | 8.28 | 14.34 | 14.64 | 24.53 | 24.42 | 30.47 |