The Photo-emission

(or…how Einstein really became famous)

Concepts of Moder Physics by Arthur Beiser

(McGraw Hill Publishing)
 Wave-Particle Duality of Light
Wave-particle duality:
Historical Context: the debate between wave and particle theories

• Newtonian Particle Theory: Light as particles (Newton's corpuscular theory that is light
was considered as a stream of partilces and showed how reflection and refraction could
be explained using particle model)

• Huygens' Wave Theory: Light as waves (Huygens' principle: each point of a wavefront
as the source of a new set of disturbances)

• Einstein's Contribution in 1905: Description of the photoelectric effect [Light as

particles (photons) ejecting electrons]

• About 20 years later in 1924, Louis de Broglie: French physicist who proposed a
groundbreaking idea in 1924; Wave-Particle Duality: The concept that particles can
exhibit both wave-like and particle-like properties.
 Wave-Particle Duality of Light: The Legacy of Max Planck

• Before planck, light had been shown to be wave motion.

• Light does things that only waves do

• Interference and diffraction experiments show that light

behaves like a wave. The photoelectric effect, the Compton
effect, and pair production demonstrate that light behaves
like a particle.

• E.g. diffraction- this is where light spreads out when it passes

through a single slit
 Diffraction at a slit
Only waves behave like this

A diffraction pattern is produced when laser light passes

through a fine slit
 Interference
• Waves interfere with each other, they can
reinforce each other or cancel each other out
 After Planck
A double slit experiment in which only one photon at a time
leaves the light source. After a long time, the screen will show a
typical interference pattern. Even though there is only one
photon emitted at a time, we cannot determine which slit it will
pass through nor where it will land on the screen. The intensity
pattern on the screen is representative of the probability that a
photon will land in a given location (higher intensity = higher
probability).
• Planck had found that light under certain circumstances
behaved as a stream of particles called photons.
• These particles are as real as electrons.
• The wave and particle nature of light are both real.
• We need both ideas to explain the behaviour of light.
• This is called wave-particle duality
 De Broglie
Like photons, the wavelength of a matter wave is given by
ℎ ℎ
𝜆= = . This is known as the de Broglie wavelength.
𝑝 𝑚𝑣

It was not long before De Broglie asked this question:

• Is it possible that tiny particles like electrons could have wave
behaviour?
• Could they even have a wavelength?
 Electrons in atoms

Electrons which orbit nuclei are a particular problem. Theory said they
should not do this. Any accelerating electron should release energy
as photons and should spiral into the nucleus
 The electron as a wave
• De Broglie suggested
that the stable orbits
around an atom
corresponded with
whole numbers of
waves.
• The regions between
the orbits could not be
occupied because a
whole number of waves
would not fit.
 The De Broglie Wavelength
• Theory led De Broglie to ℎ ℎ
an equation for the 𝜆= =
𝑝 𝑚𝑣
wavelength of an
electron

λ is the wavelength associated with

the electron h is planck’s constant The equation applies to all particles
mv is the mass x the velocity of the but only very small particles like
electron ( this is called the electrons have measurable
momentum of the electron) wavelengths.
 Electron Diffraction

• If electrons have a wavelength thereby should

behave as waves under the right
circumstances.

• For instance they should exhibit effects like

diffraction and interference.
 Electron diffraction
The wave nature of electrons is
This was the first electron well established and allows us
diffraction pattern ever to build electron microscopes
photographed. The “gaps”
necessary are so small that they
are in fact the gaps between
atoms in a crystal lattice.

Which use the wave nature of the

electron to produce images
 Wave-Particle Duality of Light
•Proposal (1924): Matter, like electrons, has both particle and wave characteristics.
•Equation: λ = h / p (wavelength = Planck's constant / momentum).
• Davisson-Germer Experiment (1927): Electron diffraction confirmed wave-like behavior.
Sometimes the wave-like properties are more important than the particle-like properties, and
sometimes it is the other way around. The particles of light are called photons.

Max Planck showed that the energy absorbed or radiated by a black body is only in
discrete quantities, not in continuous amounts. It states that electromagnetic radiation
from heated bodies is not emitted as a continuous flow but is made up of discrete units
or quanta of energy, the size of which involves a fundamental physical constant (Planck’s
constant). That is the spectral energy density at a given temperature is given by,
8𝜋ℎ𝜈 3 1
𝑢𝜈 𝜈, 𝑇 = ℎ𝜈
𝑐3
𝑒 𝑘𝐵 𝑇 − 1
However, it was well explained by Einstein in 1905, that the radiation from a black body
could be understood more simply if it was assumed that the radiation itself was
quantized, consisting like packets of energy. Each packet is called a photon. If the
frequency of the wave is is , the energy of the photons in it is given by the relationship:
𝐸 = ℎ𝜈
Where h is the Planck’s constant. Plank’s constant describes the relevancy between the
energy per quantum (photon) of electromagnetic radiation and its frequency.
 Wave-Particle Duality of Light
We know the relation for the relativistic total energy of a particle as,
𝐸 2 = 𝑝𝑐 2 + 𝑚𝑐 2 2

As the rest mass for a photon is zero but the momentum is not thus,
𝐸 = 𝑝𝑐

𝐸 ℎ𝑐ൗ𝜆 ℎ
𝑝= = =
𝑐 𝑐 𝜆

Using the above Eq., the wavelength of a photon can be found from
momentum. All objects, not just EM waves, have wavelengths which can be
found from their momentum. That is called the de Broglie wavelength.

de Broglie wavelength,
ℎ ℎ
𝜆= =
𝑝 𝑚𝑣
 Wave-Particle Duality of Light
If you are working with particles of momentum p = mv, it is often necessary to find the
momentum from the given kinetic energy K.
1
𝐾 = 𝑚𝑣 2
2
1 1
𝑚𝐾 = 2 𝑚2 𝑣 2 = 2 𝑝2

𝑝 = 2𝑚𝐾

Example: What is the de Broglie wavelength of a 90-eV electron?

Here we use the relation,
𝑝 = 2𝑚𝐾 = 2 × 9.1 × 10−31 × 90 × 1.6 × 10−19 𝑘𝑔 𝑚 𝑠 −1
= 51 × 10−25 𝑘𝑔 𝑚 𝑠 −1

Therefore, the wavelength of electron,

ℎ 6.626 × 10−34 𝐽𝑠
𝜆= = −25 −1
= 0.13 × 10−9 𝑚 = 0.13 𝑛𝑚
𝑝 51 × 10 𝑘𝑔𝑚𝑠

Example: What are the de Broglie wavelengths of electrons with the following values of
kinetic energy? (a) 1.0 eV and (b) 1.0 keV.
 What is Light?
The concept that light travels as a series of little packets is directly opposed to
the wave theory of light (Fig. below). Both views have strong experimental
support, as we have seen. According to the wave theory, light waves leave a
source with their energy spread out continuously through the wave pattern.

According to the quantum theory, light consists of individual photons, each

small enough to be absorbed by a single electron. Yet, despite the particle
picture of light it presents, the quantum theory needs the frequency of the
light to describe the photon energy.

Which theory are we to believe? Two different theories are needed to explain
a single phenomenon. This situation is not the same as it is, say, in the case of
relativistic versus Newtonian mechanics, where one turns out to be an
approximation of the other. The connection between the wave and quantum
theories of light is something else entirely.
 What is Light?

To appreciate this connection, let us consider the formation of a double-slit

interference pattern on a screen. In the wave model, the light intensity at a place on
the screen depends on E2 , the average over a complete cycle of the square of the
instantaneous magnitude E of the em wave’s electric field. In the particle model, this
intensity depends instead on Nh , where N is the number of photons per second per
unit area that reach the same place on the screen. Both descriptions must give the
same value for the intensity, so N is proportional to E2. If N is large enough, somebody
looking at the screen would see the usual double-slit interference pattern and would
have no reason to doubt the wave model. If N is small—perhaps so small that only one
photon at a time reaches the screen—the observer would find a series of apparently
random flashes and would assume that he or she is watching quantum behavior.
 What is Light?
If the observer keeps track of the flashes for long enough, though, the pattern
they form will be the same as when N is large. Thus the observer is entitled to
conclude that the probability of finding a photon at a certain place and time
depends on the value,of E2 there. If we regard each photon as somehow
having a wave associated with it, the intensity of this wave at a given place on
the screen determines the likelihood that a photon will arrive there. When it
passes through the slits, light is behaving as a wave does. When it strikes the
screen, light is behaving as a particle does. Apparently light travels as a wave
but absorbs and gives off energy as a series of particles.

We can think of light as having a dual character. The wave theory and the
quantum theory complement each other. Either theory by itself is only part
of the story and can explain only certain effects. A reader who finds it hard to
understand how light can be both a wave and a stream of particles is in good
company: shortly before his death, Einstein remarked that “All these fifty
years of conscious brooding have brought me no nearer to the answer to the
question, ‘What are light quanta?’ ” The “true nature” of light includes both
wave and particle characters, even though there is nothing in everyday life to
help us visualize that.
 The Photoelectric Effect
(or…how Einstein really became famous)
 Photo (light) + electric
• A photoelectric effect is any effect in which light
energy is converted to electricity.

• First explained by Albert Einstein in 1905

When light strikes certain light-sensitive materials…

• It may cause them to give up electrons.

 Photoelectric Effect
The energies of electrons liberated by light depend on the frequency of the light

The photoelectric effect was discovered in 1887 by the German

physicist Heinrich Rudolf Hertz. In connection with work on radio waves, Hertz
observed that, when ultraviolet light shines on two metal electrodes with a
voltage applied across them, the light changes the voltage at which sparking
takes place. During his experiments on em waves, Hertz noticed that sparks
occurred more readily in the air gap of his transmitter when ultraviolet light
was directed at one of the metal balls.

Hertz, in fact, did not follow up this observation, but others did. They soon
discovered that the cause was electrons emitted when the frequency of the
light was sufficiently high. This phenomenon is known as the photoelectric
effect and the emitted electrons are called photoelectrons.

It is one of the ironies of history that the same work to demonstrate that light
consists of em waves also gave the first hint that this was not the whole story.
 Photoelectric Effect: Why Metal Surface?
Why do we use metal in photoelectric effect?

• Photoelectric rates of absorption are highest in materials with

broad energy bands, because there are lots of electrons at a
range of energies, rather than only at discrete (sharp) energy
levels, as in a gas.

• Metals all have a broad energy band (the 'conduction band')

which causes metallic (covalent) bonding.

• In metal the electrons are in a loose connection to the metal's

atoms.