Characterizing capacitors?

Question

How dielectric constant help us to characterizing Capacitors?

Answer 1

The dielectric constant multiplies the amount of charge which can be stored on the capacitor at a given voltage (as compared to the capacitor with vacuum between the plates). This is because the dielectric material develops a polarization charge which is proportional to the charge on the capacitor, but is oriented in the opposite sense. So the capacitor without dielectric looks like

++| |--

while the one with a dielectric filling looks like

++|[-+]|--.

Answer 2

The closer capacitor plates can be put together the higher the capacitance. A high dielectric constant provides this close proximity without flash over thus more capacitance can be jammed into a a smaller size capacitor OR a given capacitor can be used at a higher voltage without damage.

Answer 3

A higher dielectric constant will require less area to obtain the same amount of capacitance as a lower dielectric constant.

Answer 4

different dielectrics provide different amounts of insulation to the plates in the caps. The most common are the mica, tantalum.... the blue ones... lol... sorry cant think atm. mica are normally not polarity sensitive, and small in value. Pico range. Tantalum are the silver kind, they have a much larger range they can come in. These are polarity sensitive and will blow up if put in backwards. The blue ones (sorry dont remember names) are for some middle to large values, these are the most common found in large heavy filters IE car stereos and line filters in com gear. Those are the most common but not sure what you are asking in particular. Sorry