In this study, we investigate the effect of an electric field on energy states of a spherical quantum dot with infinite confining potential using the perturbation method. We also perform the static dipole and dynamic dipole polarizabilities. In addition, the oscillator strengths have been calculated for the dipole transitions between higher unperturbed states. The results show that impurity and dot radius have an important effect on the Stark shift, and the effect of electric field is insensitive in small dot radii. For the excited states the Stark shift from the first-order increases linearly with the increase of electric field strength. On the other hand, the Stark shift from the first-order decreases with increasing of the magnetic quantum number. A very important future is that, for dot radius region 1.8aB≤R≤7 aB, the static dipole polarizabilities change very quickly. In addition, it is found that as the dot radius increases, the photon energy corresponding to the singularity of dynamic dipole polarizability decreases. © 2013 Elsevier B.V.