CLASSICAL PHYSICS QUANTUM PHYSICS

LIGHT ENERGY IS CONTINUOUS LIGHT ENERGY IS DISCRETE (QUANTA)

LIGHT IS IN FORM OF EM WAVE LIGHT IS IN FORM OF PARTICLE

(PHOTON)
ELEC ATOM IS

INTRODUCTION
BLACK BODY RADIATION
Blackbody is a theoritical body that absorb all radiation incident on it
and its appear black. Blackbody radiation is the thermal
electromagnetic radiation within or surrounding a body in
thermodynamic equilibrium with its environment, or emitted by a
black body.

In order to ease the calculation an ideal blackbody is introduced. A

good approximation of blackbody is a small hole that leads to the
inside of hollow object. The hole is a perfect absorber and blackbody
is the hole. When radiation strikes the hole, the radiation enters the
cavity and is trapped by reflection until absorbed by cavity walls.
The cavity is constantly absorbs and emits radiation at thermal
equilibrium The type of radiation leaving the cavity only depends on
the temperature of cavity.

Classical Explanation of Blackbody radiation

Consider a cavity at temperature T whose walls are considered as
perfect reflectors The cavity supports many modes of oscillation of
the EM field caused by accelerated charges in the cavity walls,
resulting in the emission of EM waves at all wavelength These EM
waves inside the cavity are the BB radiation They are considered to
be a series of standing EM wave set up within the cavity. Theorem of
equipartition of energy (a mainstay theorem from statistical
mechanics) says that the average energy per standing wave is

= kT

k =1.381023 J/K, Boltzmann constant

can take any value continuously and there is not reason to limit
it to take only discrete values because T is continuous and not
discrete.
In experiment, blackbody is measured in term of radiance. Radiance
in Rayleigh-Jeans Law is given by
2 ckT
R( ,T) = 4

According to rayleigh-Jeans law, intensity goes to infinity at zero

wavelength.
Quantum Explanation of blackbody radiation

The Rayleigh-Jeans law matched with the experimental data at long

wavelength, but at shorter wavelength the law fails. The mismatch is
known as uv catastrophe. Based on the law, the energy goes to infinity as
wavelength approaches zero. Hence new idea or formula is needed to
encounter the problem. In 1900, plank develops theory of blackbody
radiation, which leads to equation for intensity of radiation. Planck
generated a theoretical expression for the wavelength distribution
(radiance).

The beauty of plank formula is at long wavelengths, the plank equation

reduces to Rayleigh jeans expression. This can be shown by expanding
exponential term.
 PHOTOELECTRIC EFFECT

Photoelectric effect is the process where the electron are ejected

from metal surface when hit by sufficiently high frequency of
radiation. The photoelectron is attracted to the positive terminal (or
anode) by potential difference applied on the anode and get
detected as electric current by the external circuits while the
negative terminal (or cathode) relative to the emitter are applied to
the collector. When the retarding voltage have suffieciently enough
to repel the emitted electrons caus ethe current to the collector
decrease to zero (See the figure below).
Classical Explanation of Photoelectric Effect