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Ermanno Amata
Istituto di Astrofisica e Planetologia Spaziali
INAF
Via del fosso del cavaliere, 100
00133 Roma
Lectures delivered at the Liceo Scientifico Statale Bruno Touschek, Grottaferrata, on February 16, 17 and 18, 2015.
UV source
Experimental setup.
Vacuum tube with two electrodes, L and M connected to an
electric circuit. A variable UV source hits L with its radiation.
Possibility to apply a voltage between L and M and to reverse it
V = VM - VL
i = current intensity.
I1,2 = intensity of UV radiation.
A is an amperometer, V is a voltmeter.
When V>0, a current will flow in the circuit towards M. It is
straightforward to interpret this current as due to electrons being
emitted by L and collected by M.
-Va
V
Lectures delivered at the Liceo Scientifico Statale Bruno Touschek, Grottaferrata, on February 16, 17 and 18, 2015.
UV source
The photo-electric effect: the experimental results.
M
When V>>0, all electrons extracted from L are collected by M,
so that, even if V further increases, the current intensity will not
change (saturation current).
The saturation current is found to be proportional to the intensity
of UV radiation.
When V approaches 0, the current i decreases; i then falls to 0
when V - Va
Va does not vary with the radiation intensity.
I2 = 2I1
I1
-Va
V
Lectures delivered at the Liceo Scientifico Statale Bruno Touschek, Grottaferrata, on February 16, 17 and 18, 2015.
The electron will move in an electrostatic potential from potential VL to potential VM and will be decelerated.
As the electron reaches M, its kinetic energy will be 0 and its potential energy will be UM.
Conservation of total energy tells us that KL + UL = UM
As we know that U = q V and q = -e, we can write
KL = -e VM + e VL = e(VL- VM) = -e V = e va
In conclusion, by measuring the stop potential va we obtain a measure of the maximum kinetic energy of
the electrons extracted from L.
This energy, which we call Kmax, does not depend on the intensity of the radiation hitting L, as the stop
potential does not either. Instead, it varies from metal to metal.
Lectures delivered at the Liceo Scientifico Statale Bruno Touschek, Grottaferrata, on February 16, 17 and 18, 2015.
The solution to this problem came from Albert Einstein. He clearly drew inspiration from the new ideas
which had been recently proposed by Max Planck to explain black body radiation.
We recall that, although Planck quantised the energy in the black body cavity, he still treated the radiation as
an electromagnetic wave.
Einstein moved a big step forward and proposed that the energy of a light beam travels through space in
concentrated bundles, called photons, which behave like particles, but do not bear a mass.
He wrote for the energy of a single photon the following formula:
E = hf,
where f is the frequency of the electromagnetic radiation and h is just Plancks constant.
Many years later, Millikan, who did a lot of experimental work to check Einsteins theory of the photoelectric effect, commented that Einsteins hypothesis was bold, not to say reckless!
Lectures delivered at the Liceo Scientifico Statale Bruno Touschek, Grottaferrata, on February 16, 17 and 18, 2015.
Lectures delivered at the Liceo Scientifico Statale Bruno Touschek, Grottaferrata, on February 16, 17 and 18, 2015.
Compton observed a peak corresponding to the original wavelength of X-rays emitted by the tube, but, close
to it in wavelength, he got a second peak, at longer wavelength, which was completely unexpected.
He measured the wavelength shift and got = = 0,22 x 10-11 m.
He also found that similar peaks appeared at all angles around the carbon target and noticed that varied
with the angle following a sort of cosine law.
He then performed the same experiment using X-rays of different wavelengths.
He found that, for each scattering angle, was always the same, with no dependence upon wavelength.
The secondary peak at longer wavelength cannot be explained by the classical theory of
electromagnetism. In fact, Maxwells equations tell us that all electrons in the graphite should oscillate at the
frequency of the incident radiation; therefore, they should emit exactly the same frequency (i.e. wavelength)
which is shot towards them.
Lectures delivered at the Liceo Scientifico Statale Bruno Touschek, Grottaferrata, on February 16, 17 and 18, 2015.
where m0 is the rest mass of the particle and c is the speed of light.
As for the photon m0 = 0, Einstein concluded that a photon possesses a quantised momentum
p = E/c = hf/c
Instead, in special relativity, the usual expression for the momentum for a particle which has a rest mass m0 >
0, is
Lectures delivered at the Liceo Scientifico Statale Bruno Touschek, Grottaferrata, on February 16, 17 and 18, 2015.
hf/c
(hf/c) sin
(hf/c) cos
E0_ph= hf
p0_ph= hf/c
E0_el= mec2
p0_el= 0
hf/c
pelcos
pelsin
The incident photon has an energy E0_ph = hf and a momentum p0_ph = hf/c. It bumps into a target electron
and transfers to it some energy and some momentum: after the collision, the photon frequency will be f.
As both energy and momentum must be conserved, we must write
E0_ph + E0_el = Ef_ph + Eel
p0_ph + p0_el = pf_ph + pel
The second equation is in vectorial form, i.e. it corresponds to two scalar equations, along the x and y axes.
Compton solved this system of three equations; then, used the = c/f relation and obtained the formula to
calculate the wavelength of the scattered photon:
= + (h/mec) (1-cos)
i.e.
= = (h/mec) (1-cos)
This formula closely reproduced experimental data.
Lectures delivered at the Liceo Scientifico Statale Bruno Touschek, Grottaferrata, on February 16, 17 and 18, 2015.
The = 90 case
Peak at >
Let us derive Comptons result for = 90, as in this case the three equations
written in the previous slide take a rather simple form.
We expect to obtain = = (h/mec) (1-cos90) = h/mec.
We start from the two equations concerning momentum
p0_ph _x = pf_ph_x + pel_x
These two equations tell us that momentum
must be conserved both along x and along y.
p0_ph _y = pf_ph_y + pel_y
where x and y refer to the two axes.
and
pel_y = -hf/c .
pel_x
At this point, we recall that f ~ f, so that we can write that pel_x ~ -pel_y. = |pel_y|.
We conclude that ~ 45, so that the kinetic energy of the electron can be written as
K = mev2 = me2 v2/2me = p2/2me = (h2f 2/c2+ h2f 2/c2)/2me ~ (2h2f 2/c2)/2me = h2f 2/mec2
pel_y
45
We can now rewrite the conservation of energy, which readily tells us that the decrease of photon energy is
equal to K:
h f - h f = h2f 2/mec2
We now recall that f= c/, so that we can change to wavelengths and obtain c/ - c/ = h/me 2
Finally, we multiply both sides by /c, so that
= = (h/mec) ( / 2 ) ~ h/mec
q.e.d.
Lectures delivered at the Liceo Scientifico Statale Bruno Touschek, Grottaferrata, on February 16, 17 and 18, 2015.