ABSTRACT
The electric and magnetic properties of materials are intrinsic properties of matter determined by the extent of interactions with an external electric or magnetic field at all levels of organization within matter including structural, molecular, atomic, and electronic. This chapter considers the electrical properties used to characterize non-metallic materials as dielectric properties. The development of standards for safe exposure to electromagnetic fields has necessitated detailed knowledge of the dielectric properties of body tissues in order to quantify the interaction and assess their biological effects. For most biological materials, the magnetic permeability is close to that of free space, which implies that there is very little direct interaction with the external magnetic fields at low-field strengths. The chapter details the fundamental concepts of the interaction of homogenous matter with static fields and proceeds, in steps, to heterogenous mixtures and their dynamic response to time-varying fields leading to the dielectric properties of tissues.
