Polarizability Polarizability is the relative tendency of a charge distribution, like the electron cloud of an atom or molecule, to be distorted from its normal shape by an external electric field, which may be caused by the presence of a nearby ion or dipole. The electronic polarizability ? is defined as the ratio of the induced dipole moment of an atom to the electric field that produces this dipole moment. Polarizability is often a scalar valued quantity, however in the general case it is tensor-valued. Electricity and Magnetism QUDT http://qudt.org/vocab/quantity#Polarizability <http://dbpedia.org/resource/Polarizability> ODM2 Units Type Controlled Vocabulary ODM2 Working Group A vocabulary for describing the type of the Unit or the more general quantity that the Unit represents.