The electric dipole moment is a measure of the separation of positive and negative electrical charges within a system, that is, a measure of the system's overall polarity. The SI units for electric dipole moment are coulomb-meter (C⋅m); however, a commonly used unit in atomic physics and chemistry is the debye (D).
Theoretically, an electric dipole is defined by the first-order term of the multipole expansion; it consists of two equal and opposite charges that are infinitesimally close together, although real dipoles have separated charge.