在电磁学里，有两种偶极子（dipole）：电偶极子是两个分隔一段距离，电量相等，正负相反的电荷。磁偶极子是一圈封闭循环的电流，例如一个有常定电流运行的线圈，称为载流回路。偶极子的性质可以用它的偶极矩描述。

电偶极矩（）由负电荷指向正电荷，大小等于正电荷量乘以正负电荷之间的距离。磁偶极矩（）的方向，根据右手法则，是大拇指从载流回路的平面指出的方向，而其它手指则指向电流运行方向，磁偶极矩的大小等于电流乘以线圈面积。

除了载流回路以外，电子和许多基本粒子都拥有磁偶极矩。它们都会产生磁场，与一个非常小的载流回路产生的磁场完全相同。但是，现时大多数的科学观点认为这个磁偶极矩是电子的自然性质，而非由载流回路生成。

In electromagnetism, there are two kinds of dipoles:

Dipoles can be characterized by their dipole moment, a vector quantity. For the simple electric dipole given above, the electric dipole moment points from the negative charge towards the positive charge, and has a magnitude equal to the strength of each charge times the separation between the charges. (To be precise: for the definition of the dipole moment, one should always consider the "dipole limit", where, for example, the distance of the generating charges should converge to 0 while simultaneously, the charge strength should diverge to infinity in such a way that the product remains a positive constant.)