Ambo University, Institute of Technology

Applied Modern Physics

Lecture 03 : Particle Properties of Waves

Miressa M. Electrical and Computer
Engineering Department
Introduction

• Physics in the Late 19th Century (prior to relativity and

quantum mechanics (QM))

– Atoms are basic constituents of matter

– Newton’s Laws apply universally

– The world is deterministic

• According to classical mechanics (CM):

– Given initial positions and velocities , and given all forces

F(t) ⇒ all the future can be predicted!

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• Physics was complete except for a few decimal places !

– Newtonian mechanics explained macroscopic behavior of matter

-- planetary motion, fluid flow, elasticity, etc.

– Light was explained as an electromagnetic wave

– Thermodynamics had its first two laws and most of their

consequences

– Basic statistical mechanics had been applied to chemical systems

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• However there were several experiments that could not be
explained by classical physics and the accepted dogma!

– Blackbody radiation

– Photoelectric effect
Failures of
– X-ray diffraction, Compton effect classical physics

– Wave-particle duality, wave equations

– Discrete atomic spectra

The birth of
– The electron as a subatomic particle Quantum mechanics

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Some pioneers of Quantum Mechanics

Max Planck
E. Schrödinger (1858-1947)
A. Einstein P.A.M. Dirac (1887-1961)
(1878-1955) (1902-1984) Blackbody radiation
Photoelectric effect

W. Heisenberg R. Feynman
De Broglie (1893-1987) N. Bohr (1885-1962) (1901-1976) (1918-1988)
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Particle properties of waves

• Blackbody radiation

• Photoelectric effect

• Compton effect

photon

electron

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 Particle properties of waves

Light is a wave: Huygens, Maxwell, Thomas Young,

Hertz,…

Light acts also as a particle (particle nature of light: the

photon)

Planck, Einstein, Compton, …

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Blackbody Radiation

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Blackbody radiation

• Blackbody: material that absorbs 100% of radiation that hits it, i.e.,

0% reflection.

• Blackbody can be approximately realized by a closed cavity with

absorbing walls and a small hole in one of the walls.

• When the walls of the cavity are heated to a temperature T > Ts,
where Ts is the temperature of the surrounding, the hole acts as
radiation source with an intensity that is larger than that of any other
body at the same temperature.

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Blackbody radiation

• A black-body
– emits different amount of light at each frequency (or wavelength)
for a given temperature, showing a curve.

– emits light whose wavelength depends only on a temperature of a

system, not shape and material.

– In 1859, Kirchhoff introduced

the concept of a black-body
and proved that its emission
spectrum depends only on its
temperature.
Gustav Kirchhoff
Conceptual blackbody (1824-1887)
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Blackbody radiation

• “black” body radiates: hot oven, Sun, glowing coal,…

• Independent of material, just T: shorter λ higher T
• Figure below shows spectral distribution of radiation emitted from a
blackbody for different blackbody temperatures:

ℓ( , ) ℓ , is total power
radiated per unit area
Intensity

per unit wavelength

at a given T.

( )
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• Two important observations should be noted from the curve:
– The maximum of the distribution shifts to smaller
wavelengths as the temperature is increased.
– The total power radiated increases with the temperature.

• Why does blackbody radiation has this kind of curve?

• Theoretical attempts to fit the experimentally observed data

– Wien’s displacement law
– Stefan-Boltzmann law Unsuccessful attempts !
– Rayleigh-Jeans law

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• Wien’s displacement law:
OK only for short wavelengths
– where is the wavelength of the peak of the spectral
distribution at a given temperature. The position of varies
with temperature.

• The power per unit area at ℓ( , )

temperature T can be

Intensity
quantified by integrating the
intensity ℓ( , ) over all
wavelengths

= ℓ ,
( )
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• Stefan-Boltzmann law:
– They showed that R(T ) is related to the temperature by
=
– The emissivity ( = 1 for an idealized blackbody) is simply the
ratio of the emissive power of an object to that of an ideal
blackbody and is always less than 1.
• Rayleigh-Jeans formula
– Blackbody spectral distribution of Rayleigh and Jeans
2
ℓ , =

– It is the best formulation that classical theory can provide to

describe blackbody radiation.

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• OK for long λ but « ultraviolet catastrophe » !
• The formula approaches the experimental data at large wavelengths
but disagrees badly at low wavelengths

• Model predicts an infinite energy!

• Attempts to understand and

derive from basic principles the
shape of the blackbody spectral
distribution were unsuccessful
throughout the 1890s and
presented a serious dilemma to
the best scientists of the day.

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Planck’s radiation law

• Planck was simply looking for a formula that fit the known
blackbody spectral distribution.
• Planck assumed that the radiation in the cavity of the blackbody was
emitted (and absorbed) by some sort of “oscillators” that were
contained in the walls.
– When adding up the energies
Oscillator of the oscillators, he assumed
(for convenience) that each
one had an energy that was
an integral multiple of hf,
where f is the frequency of
the oscillating wave and h is a
constant.

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Planck’s radiation law

• Finally Planck found a formula that fit the data

ℓ , = ( / ) −
• This equation is called Planck’s radiation law.
• He could arrive at agreement with the experimental data only by
making two important modifications of classical theory:
1. The oscillators (of electromagnetic origin) can only have certain
discrete energies determined by = ℎ , where n is an integer, f is
the frequency, and h is called Planck’s constant and has the value
ℎ = 6.626 10 .
2. The oscillators can absorb or emit energy in discrete multiples of
the fundamental quantum of energy given by
∆ =ℎ

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Planck’s radiation law

• The derivation of the Planck formula is basically the computation of

the average energy of an oscillator using the standard statistical
/
weighting for different energy values.

• According to Planck this is done by assuming that E comes in units

of hf so that one sums with above weighting over E = nhf, n = 1, 2,
...∞,
∑ ( ℎ ) / ℎ
= /
= /
∑

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Planck’s radiation law
In the limit of high temperatures
or long wavelengths
1 1
2 ℎ 1 ≈
ℓ , = ( / )−1 ℎ
( / ) ( )
−1

2
ℓ( , ) ℓ , =
=0→
( )= ℓ ,
Rayleigh-Jeans law
= .
( )=

Wien’s displacement law Stefan-Boltzmann law

ℎ
Average energy of oscillators: = ( / ) −1

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 Photoelectric Effect

Radiant energy Emitted electrons

Metal surface

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Electron emission

• The methods known now by which electrons can be made to

completely leave the material:
– Thermionic emission: Application of heat allows electrons to gain
enough energy to escape.
– Secondary emission: The electron gains enough energy by transfer
from a high-speed particle that strikes the material from outside.
– Field emission: A strong external electric field pulls the electron
out of the material.
– Photoelectric effect
• The photoelectric effect is one of several ways in which electrons
can be emitted by materials. It is the simplest evidence for the
quantization of radiation energy.

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Photoelectric effect

• The 1900 Planck formula and explanation would have remained an

obscure idea except for the Photoelectric Effect, which was in turn
explained by Einstein. Einstein’s explanation required that light
come in little packets (photons) each with energy hf.

• What is the photoelectric effect?

– Shine light on a metal surface and out come electrons.

• How would you view this in Maxwell’s eyes?

• and come in and shake the and get it oscillating and it gets
out of metal.

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Photoelectric effect

• In this view, the biggerand (higher intensity) the bigger the

shaking and the more energy you can give to the . In fact, the
energy density of an E&M wave is
1 1
= = +
2 2
which clearly gets bigger and bigger as and get larger.
Conversely, by decreasing and it should be possible to have
the light wave carry only a very tiny amount of energy.

• Einstein looked at the experimental data and concluded this

could not be correct.

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Photoelectric effect

• In contrast, and to repeat, the classical expectation is that the

maximum kinetic energy of the ejected , , should be a
function of intensity, which means it should increase with increasing
| | and | | since more energy would be deliverable to individual
electrons.
• Further, by decreasing the intensity, the classical expectation is that
we would eventually reach a point at which too little energy is
delivered to the to release it from the metal.

• Neither is true experimentally.

• We know for sure now that Einstein was right (of course). (This is
what he got his Nobel for and not for relativity!)

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Photoelectric effect

• Two classically unexpected results were seen:

– depends on f and only f (i.e. not on intensity at all).
– For < , where depends upon the metal on which the light
shines, no ’s come out.
– In fact, one finds that is directly proportional to f with slope
given by h.
= ℎ( − )

The value of “h” matches

the one found by Planck.

This was an extraordinary result !

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Photoelectric effect

• Einstein’s assumptions:
1. Assume that light comes in discrete photons, each carrying energy
hf.
2. Higher intensity is to be interpreted as more photons.
3. Only one photon light bundle is absorbed by any one single in
the metal.
4. If the energy of the photon can overcome the metal binding, then
the gets out. The maximum energy of the ejected would then
be = ℎ − ∅, where ∅ ≡ work function is the metal potential
the must overcome to get out — ∅ depends on the metal.
∅
5. There is a certain minimum frequency = such that =
0, as observed experimentally

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Photoelectric effect

• For an individual electron

Determines the
Depends on
stopping voltage
the material

ℎ
ℎ =∅ + .
Energy of Work Kinetic energy of
incident light function emitted electron
ℎ

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Example

• Suppose for iron we observe that the frequency for which

= = 0 is = 1.1 10 . What is the stopping potential for
light with λ = 250 nm?
• Two steps are required:
= 0 → ℎ = ∅ or
∅ = 4.14 10 . 1.1 10 = 4.5
• where we have written ℎ = 6.63 0 . in eV units using 1eV =
1.602x10
• Then
– Given a λ, we know f = c/λ and then we also know that
= = ℎ − ∅ = 4.96 − 4.5 = 0.46
= 0.46

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Photoelectric effect

• To sum up:
• Expectations based on classical EM theory of photoelectric effect:
– The energy of emitted electron should increase with the intensity
– No dependence of the frequency in the emission
– Sufficiently dim light → time lag

• Experimental observations:
– No intensity dependent: Electrons can be pulled out even with
very low intensity radiation
– Frequency dependent
– No time lag

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• The classical Maxwell vs. Einstein picture of light

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Example

• How many photons per second emanate from a 10 mW , 633 nm

laser?

• Answer: For each photon

3 10 /
= ℎ = ℎ = (6.63 10 . ) = 3.14 10
633 10

– To find the number of particle per unit time, we divide energy per

unit time by energy per particle:

10 10 /
= /
= 3.18 10 ℎ /
3.14 10

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Spectrum of EM wave

Visible spectrum

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X-ray

• We use the term X-ray for E&M radiation with λ ∈ [10 , 10] nm
region of the spectrum.
• We want to use X-rays to demonstrate the particle nature of E&M
radiation.
• X-rays are produced by smashing high-speed electrons into a metal
target.
• Any charged particle radiates E&M energy when it accelerates, and
the smashing gives violent acceleration so that much radiation is
produced.

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 Compton effect

Compton theory demonstrated

the correctness of both the
photon
quantum concept and the

electron particle nature of the

photon.

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Compton effect

• When a photon enters matter, it is likely to interact with one of the

atomic electrons.
• Photon is scattered from only one electron, rather than from all the
electrons in the material, and that the laws of the conservation of
energy and momentum apply as in any elastic collision between two
particles.
• Einstein’s photon particle concept must be correct.

• Momentum of a particle moving at the speed of light (photon) is

given by
ℎ ℎ
= = =

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Compton effect

• Compton scattering of a photon by an electron essentially at rest.

• Photon is a particle with a definite energy and momentum

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Compton effect

• The incident and scattered photons have frequencies f and f ‘,

respectively. The recoil electron has energy and momentum .
• The electron’s total energy is related to its momentum by

=( ) +

• Conservation of momentum

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Compton effect

• How can we relate the change in wavelength ∆ = − to the

scattering angle of the photon?
– We first eliminate the recoil angle by squaring Equations of
and and adding them, resulting in

– Then we substitute Ee and pe into this Equation from conservation

of momentum equation to get

– Squaring the left-hand side and cancelling terms leaves

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Compton effect

• Finally the relationship between the change in wavelength Δ =

− and the scattering angle of the photon can be given by

• The process of elastic photon scattering from electrons is now called

the Compton effect.
• Compton wavelength:
ℎ
= = 2.426 10

• The ratio Δ / is large for x rays and small for visible light.
– Compton effect is important only for x rays or -ray photons.

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Example

• An X-ray photon of 0.0500 nm wavelength strikes a free, stationary

electron. The photon scatters at 90◦. Determine the momenta of the
incident photon, the scattered photon, and the electron.
• Answer:
– For the incident photon we have
ℎ
= = 1.33 10 . /

– the scattered photon’s wavelength:

6.63 10
− 0.05 10 = (1 − 90 )
9.11 10 3 10
= 0.0524
– The momentum of photon after collision is
ℎ
= = 1.26 10 . /

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Example

• Momentum of electron after collision:

= 1.83 0 . /

• The angle at which this electron is traveling

sin(90 ) 1.26
sin = = = 0.69
1.83
= 0.76 = 43.55

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Summary

• Blackbody radiation can be “explained” by quantifying energy of

oscillators E = hf.

• Photoelectric effect can be “explained” by quantifying energy of

light E = hf.

• Collision of light with particles like electrons can only be explained

by quantum nature of photon.

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