Duplex receptacle
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A duplex receptacle is an electrical socket assembly that accepts two plugs.
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[edit] Ubiquity of duplex receptacles
In North America, most electrical wall sockets are duplex receptacles.
The same applies for Central and South American countries (such as Colombia, Panama, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Ecuador) that use "USA style" (NEMA 5-15) receptacles.
[edit] Break-away tabs
Duplex receptacles usually have break-away tabs to separate the top and bottom halves, if desired, so that they can be placed on separate circuits.
[edit] Common (shared) neutral
In kitchens, duplex receptacles are usually fed from a cable that has three conductors, in addition to ground. The three conductors are usually colored red, black, and white. The white serves as a common neutral, while the red and black each feed, separately, the top and bottom hot sides of the receptacle. Typically such receptacles are supplied from a ganged breaker, i.e. a breaker in which the handles are tied together for a common trip, so that if one kitchen appliance malfunctions and pops the breaker, the other side of the duplex receptacle will be shut off as well.
[edit] Reliability of common (shared) neutrals, when used with light dimmers
If a duplex receptacle were ever supplied from two separate light dimmers upstream (a bad idea anyway since there would be the danger of accidentally plugging in something that doesn't like to be dimmed), there could be problems with high harmonics on the shared neutral. Thus shared neutrals are not a good idea upstream of a light dimmer.
See distributed dimming.
