Quantum Physics

SCH 1013
 Contents
• Blackbody Radiation and Planck’s Hypothesis of
Quantized Energy
• Photons and the Photoelectric Effect
• The Mass and Momentum of a Photon
• Photon Scattering and the Compton Effect
• The de Broglie Hypothesis and Wave-Particle
Duality
• The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle
• Quantum Tunneling
 Blackbody Radiation and Planck’s Hypothesis
of Quantized Energy
• In the early 1900’s “Modern physics” was emerging!
• The glow of the inside of a furnace could start a physics
revolution.
• An ideal black body absorbs all light incident upon it.
• A black body cavity with a small opening lets light in, the
lightbounces around and is eventually totally absorbed.
 Blackbody Radiation
• Lots of objects can be approximated by a black
body.
• Shiny things are the opposite of black bodies.
• An ideal blackbody is also an ideal radiator.
 Blackbody Radiation
• The light emitted contains a continuous range
of wavelengths or frequency.
• As temperature increases, the radiation
emitted not only increases in total intensity
but has its peak intensity at higher
frequencies.
• The curve of a black body spectrum depends
only on T (not the material of the black body)
 Blackbody Radiation
• It is found experimentally that the wavelength at the
peak of the spectrum, λ is related to the Kelvin
temperature T by:

• λ T = 0.0029 m.K (Wien’s Law)

 Blackbody Radiation
• Classical physics calculations were used to predict the
amount of light produced by a blackbody at various
wavelengths and frequencies. These predictions were
WRONG!
• The discrepancy between the predictions and experimental
evidence was largest in the UV range. “The ultraviolet
catastrophe”
 Hypothesis of Quantized Energy
• Max Planck discovered that he could
reproduce the experimental curve by
assuming that the radiation in a blackbody
came in quantized energy packets, depending
on the frequency:

• The constant h in this equation is known as

Planck’s constant:
 Photons and the Photoelectric Effect
• Einstein suggested that the quantization of
light was real; that light came in small
packets, now called photons, of energy:

• Photons are little particles of light, you can not

split a photon! It is indivisible.
 Photons and the Photoelectric Effect
• Therefore, a more intense beam of light will
contain more photons, but the energy of each
photon does not change.
 Photons and the Photoelectric Effect
• The photoelectric effect occurs when a beam of light
strikes a metal, and electrons are ejected.
• Each metal has a minimum amount of energy
required to eject an electron, called the work
function, W0. If the electron is given an energy E by
the beam of light, its maximum kinetic energy is:

• Work functions are different or

different metals
30-2 Photons and the Photoelectric
Effect
 Photons and the Photoelectric Effect
• Each photon’s energy is determined by its
frequency. If it is less than the work function,
electrons will not be ejected, no matter how
intense the beam.
 Photons and the Photoelectric Effect
• A more intense beam means more photons,
and therefore more ejected electrons. Kinetic
energy does not change, it only depends on
frequency.
 The Mass and Momentum of a Photon
• Photons always travel at the speed of light. They have
momentum, even if they don’t have mass.
• The momentum of a photon can be written:

• Setting v=c and then dividing the momentum by the

energy,

• we find:

• So a photon has momentum even if it has NO MASS! This

means that a photon can impart momentum in a collision
 Photon Scattering and Compton effect
• When Compton aimed short-wavelength light at various
materials, and detected light scattered at various angle, he
found that the scattered light had a slightly longer wavelength
than did the incident light, indicating a loss of energy.
• By applying law of conservation of energy and momentum,
Compton derived the following equation for the wavelength
of the scattered photon:
The de Broglie Hypothesis and Wave-
Particle Duality
• Young’s double slit experiment proved light is a wave,
Einstein and Planck proved light can also be a particle.
Can other particles also behave like waves?
• In 1923, de Broglie proposed that the same
relationship between wavelength and momentum
should apply to massive particles as well as photons:

• This means anything (electrons, baseballs, YOU) can

have a wavelength!
The de Broglie Hypothesis and Wave-
Particle Duality
The de Broglie Hypothesis and Wave-
Particle Duality
The de Broglie Hypothesis and Wave-
Particle Duality
The de Broglie Hypothesis and Wave-
Particle Duality
The de Broglie Hypothesis and Wave-
Particle Duality
The de Broglie Hypothesis and Wave-
Particle Duality
The de Broglie Hypothesis and Wave-
Particle Duality
The de Broglie Hypothesis and Wave-
Particle Duality
Heisenberg uncertainty principle