K Band Measurement of the Dielectric Constants of Dry Air and Four Constituent Gases.

The dielectric constants of oxygen, dry air, argon, nitrogen and carbon dioxide were determined by using an electronic counter to measure the resonant frequency shift that occurred when an evacuated microwave cavity was filled with each of these gases. The experiment was statistically designed. Included in the results for each gas is an overall dielectric constant and a 95 percent confidence interval for the dielectric constant. For the conditions used in this experiment, the dielectric constant will lie in the established interval 95 percent of the time. The results of this experiment differed by less than 0.51 from recently published results. Author