Notes on the microscopic theory of dielectric polarization

The microscopic structure of dielectric polarization and its applications for microscopic description of polarized dielectrics have been studied in the approximation of point polarizing dipoles. The range of applicability of this approximation to the existing materials and the metamaterials with metal spheres have been estimated on the basis of numerical simulation. It has been shown that this approximation is applicable for simulation of the qualitative behavior of dielectric materials, the effective dielectric constant of which is not higher than ∼10, and for the quantitative description it is not higher than ∼5. For homogeneous spheres made of the material to which the theory is applicable, the near-surface homogeneity of the polarization is perturbed and the extent of the perturbation increases with the dielectric constant.