The relationship between electric displacement D and electric field E
was studied for polyamides consisting of m-xylylenediamine and aliphat
ic dicarboxylic acids with numbers of carbon atoms from 6 to 11 and 13
. Regardless of the number of carbon atoms in the acids, quenched samp
les of these polyamides exhibit a D-E hysteresis loop with remanent po
larization of 23-67 mC.m-2. polarization is related to the amide group
s aligned by the electric field.