531 PHYS - LN3

EM radiation r
Source: oscillating charge E

r
E

r
B

General Principles
All bodies emit radiation continuously whatever their temperature.
The predominant frequency (color) depends on the temperature.
Mostly infrared at room temperature.
The ability of a body to radiate is closely related to its ability to absorb
radiation.
At thermal equilibrium the rate of radiation is equal to the rate of
absorption of a body.

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531 PHYS - LN3

Blackbody
Ideal body
Absorbs all radiation regardless of the frequency
Blackbody Radiator
Cavity with tiny hole (for example, a rectangular box)
Filled with radiation at equilibrium
Filled with standing waves at equilibrium with wavelengths

WIEN
WIENS DISPLACEMENT LAW
As a body is heated the wavelength of maximum energy
density is reduced and is given by maxT = 2.898 x 10-3 m K
This gives rise to the concept of colour temperature where the
temperature and colour are linked
WIEN
WIENS RADIATION LAW
Wien put forward the empirical law (T ) = A -5 e -B/T where A and B
are experimentally determined constants
Although this function works well at short wavelengths it does not
not give
good results at long wavelengths

Example How Hot is the Sun?

Consider the Sun as a blackbody. The peak radiation occurs at
500 nm
Use Wien
Wiens displacement law
max T = 2.898 x 10-3 m K
Thus
T = 2.898 x 10-3/ max = 2.898 x 10-3 m K/(500 x 10-9 m)=5800 K
Apparent surface temperature of the Sun is about 5800K

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531 PHYS - LN3

Rayleigh-
Rayleigh-Jeans Law
Rayleigh calculated the number of modes of vibration in the cavity
He found that the number of possible modes per unit volume in the
the
wavelength range to +d was given by dn=(8
=(8/4) d
Thermodynamic arguments indicated that each mode had kT of
energy
The energy density in wavelength range to +d was calculated
to be (T ) = 8 k T -4
This is called the Rayleigh-
Rayleigh-Jeans Law
Note that at short wavelength the function blows up
This is called the ULTRAVIOLET CATASTROPHE

Plancks Radiation Law

Max Planck (1900) used thermodynamic arguments to derive
Wien
Wiens Law for short wavelengths
He then used similar arguments to derive Rayleigh
Rayleighs Law at
long wavelengths
These were combined to give
=A-5/(eB/T - 1)
At short wavelength e B/T >> 1 and so expression reduces
to Wien
Wiens Law
At long wavelength e B/T ~ 1 +B/
+B/T and so this reduces to
= (A/B )T -4 i.e. Rayleigh
Rayleighs Law

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Consider a cavity with walls kept at a constant temperature T.

emission from walls e.m. radiation emission & absorption equilibrium

= d = d ; where or = spectral energy density
0 0

d energy density in the freq. range from to + d

In order to comply with the 2nd law of

thermodynamic,
(and ) is a universal function of frequency
and temperature, Not a function of the shape of
the cavity

We may consider a simple rectangular cavity uniformly filled with

with a
dielectric and having perfectly conducting walls .

First, one must count the number of

waves inside a black cavity of dimension y
2a2aL
2a
To find or we need to know what z
2a
standing wave, with what frequencies exist in x L
the cavity. And what is the average energy. V=(2a)(2a)(L)

The allowed standing waves are called

NORMAL MODES
According to Maxwell's equations, the electric field E(x,y,z,t) must
satisfy the wave equation
r
r 1 2E
E 2
2
=0 (1)
c t 2
The field must be satisfy the following boundary condition at each
each wall;
r r
En = 0 (*)
Where n is the normal to the particular wall under consideration

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531 PHYS - LN3

r r
Let E = u(x, y, z)A(t) (2)
and substitute in (1), we have
r r
2u = k 2u (3)
r
2
d A r
2
= ( ck )2 A (4)
dt
Where k is a constant. Equation (4) has the general solution

A = A0 sin(t + ) (5)
Where A0 and are arbitrary constants and =ck.
ck.

The solution given by (5) corresponds to a standing wave

configuration of e.m.
e.m. field within the cavity.
In fact the amplitude of oscillation at a given point of the cavity
cavity is
constant in time. A solution of this type is called an e.m.
e.m. mode of the
cavity.

Equation (3) is Helmholtz eq. , under B.C. gives the following ;

u x = e x cos(k x x ) sin(k y z ) sin(k z z )

u y = e y sin(k x x ) cos(k y z ) sin(k z z ) (6)

uz = e z sin(k x z ) sin(k y z )cos(k z z )

Satisfy eq.(3) for any value of ex,ey,ez, provided that ;
2 2 2
k 2 = k x + k y + kz (7)
The solution (6) already satisfy the B.C. (*) on the three planes
planes
x=0, y=0, z=0
If the condition that eq. (*) should also be satisfied on the other
other
walls of the cavity, we have; L

l m n
kx = ,ky = , kz =
2a 2a L
l, m and n are positive integers represent the number of nodes
that the standing wave modes has along x, y and z respectively

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The freq. of the mode will be;

l 2 m 2 n 2
l2,m ,n = c 2 + +
2 a 2 a L
If N represent the number of modes in the cavity with freq. between 0
and

Next thing would be to calculate the number of modes between the

frequency range of (0, ).
(0,
2/c).
In wave number units this is the range (0, 2/c). The number of
modes and the density can be calculated by treating each
(kx ,ky ,kz ) as a point in the positive
combination of the numbers (k
octant of the Cartesian coordinate system. The unit cell of the cube
is defined by the lengths (/2a, /2a, /L)
/L) The number of nodes in
this cube is

kz

ky

3
kx 1 4 2
.
volume in positive octant in freq. space 8 3 c 8 3
N = =2 = V
volume of one mode 3c 3
( )( )( )
The factor 2 is for the two perpendicular directions of polarization
polarization
2a 2a L

where V is the total volume of the cavity

The corresponding number of modes per unit volume and per unit
frequency range is
dN / d 8 2
p( ) = = 3 (mode density)
V c

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Since energy density is given by;

v = p( ) E
Where <E> is the average energy in each mode
By assuming a continuous spectrum (high number of modes), the
average energy in a given temperature T can be obtained directly
directly
from the Boltzmann statistics;
The probability dp that the energy of a given cavity mode lie
between E and E+dE is express by dp=C
dp=C exp[-
exp[-(E/kT
(E/kT)],
)], where C is a
constant.
The average energy of the mode <E> is therefore given by;

Ee
E / kT
dE
Each vibration
vibration or normal
E = 0

= kT mode can take a continuous

e range of energy
E / kT
dE
0

Thus we would get the energy density

8 2
v = p( ) E = 3 kT Rayleigh-
Rayleigh- Jeans Law WRONG
c
Completely disagreement with experimental results

Right away we know that the previous so called Rayleigh-

Rayleigh-
Jeans equation must be wrong since there is no limit for the
energy density if T .

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The correction was, however, not at all an easy task to find but
required totally new concepts to be taken into account. Instead of
assuming totally continuous spectrum the introduction of the light
light
quantum lead to the cutoff that was also intuitively needed.

Quantum hypothesis: Electromagnetic energy at

frequency can only appear as a multiple of a step size h.
Let the allowed energies be E1, E2 , E3 ,
Then n = n h and the relative probability of obtaining an energy j
is exp( - Ej / kT ) (i.e., a Boltzmann distribution)

1h e h / kT + 2h e 2 h / kT + 3h e 3h / kT +
=
1 + e h / kT + e 2 h / kT + e 3h / kT +

nh e nh / kT
h
= 1
=

e h / kT 1
e nh / kT
1

How?

nh h
exp( nh / kT ) kT n = 0 n

exp[ n( h / kT )] kT n exp( n )

n=0 h
E =
n= 0
kT = kT = where =
kT
n=0 exp[ n( h / kT )] n=0 exp( n )

1
n=0 kT exp( nh / kT )

d d 1 d
ln n = 0 exp( n ) = kT ln[1 exp( )]

= kT ln = kT
d d 1 exp( ) d
exp( ) h h
= kT = =
1 exp( ) exp 1 exp( h / kT ) 1

h
E =
exp( h / kT ) 1

Note that for h/kT 0, exp(h

exp(h/kT)
kT) 1+h
1+h/kT,
kT, and therefore <E> kT
Similarly, <E> 0 as h/kT

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dierent
Now the energy density also becomes di

8 2 h
= p( ) E = h
c3
e kT
1
This Planck formula has also been experimentally verified

In term of ;
h 3 1
= = h
2 2 c 3
e kT
1
Note 4 2
kT for h/kT << 1
c3
=
4 2
3
h e - h/kT for h/kT >> 1
c

Planck result fits experiment perfectly

R-J is accurate in infrared but diverges in ultraviolet
Wien works well except in the infrared

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Whats T() ?
What

We know = c/ so d = - (c/2)d and define T()d = - T()d

so T() = -T()d/d = T()c/2

8h c d 8hc d
T ( )d = = 5
3 2 exp[ hc /( kT )] 1 exp[ hc /( kT )] 1
Note: Both Stefan
Stefans Law & Wien
Wiens displacement law can be derived
from the Plank formula

One important and interesting fact is to notice that the average

number of photons in each mode is

E 1
q = =
h exp( h / kT ) 1

Exercise
Determine the wavelength of maximum emission for the human
body (37
(37 C), assuming a Black-
Black-Body distribution of the emitted EM
radiation.
dE 8hc
= =
(
d 5 e hc / kT 1 )
h = 6.62608 10 34 J s , c = 2.99879 10 + 8 m s 1 , k = 1.38065 10 23 J K 1 , T = 310 K

The maximum in the energy distribution is obtaining solving:

d d 8hc
=0 =0
d ( )
d 5 e hc / kT 1 T = 310
...


1 = 1 hc
max 1
hc 5 kT If
hc
>> 1
hc
>> max
exp( ) max kT kT
max kT


1 ~ = 1 hc = 9.282 m
max 1
hc max
5 kT
exp( )
max kT

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Exercise
A heater filament has a radius of 2 mm and a length of 200 mm. If
If its
surface temperature is 2000 K what is the net radiated power?

Radiated heat from object of temperature T into surroundings

with temperature T0 is given by
R = e A (T 4 - T04)
Since T = 2000K and T0 = 300 K the T 4 term will be much larger
than the T04 (check!) and so the rate of heat loss is
R=eAT4
Surface area of cylinder is given by
A =2 r l = 2 x 3.14 (2 x 10-3 m) 0.2m = 2.5110-3 m2
We will assume that e = 1, thus
R = 1 (5.6710-8 W m-2 K-4 )( 2.5x10-3 m2 )(2000 K)4 = 2.27 kW

Example: Sunlight falls at the rate of 1.4 kW/m2 on the earth

earths
surface when the sun is directly overhead. The earth
earths orbital
1.51011 m while the sun
radius is 1.5 7.0108 m. Find the
suns radius is 7.0
temperature of the sun
suns surface.
Solution:
Intensity = Power/Area = P/A
Power = IA = RA = (1.4x103 W/m2)(4)(1.5x1011 m)2
= 3.96x1026 W
total power radiated by the sun

radiation rate from sun

suns surface:
P P 3.96 10 26 W
R= = = = 6.43 10 7 W/m 2
A 4rs2
( 4 )( 7.0 10 8 )2
Let e=1
1/ 4 1/ 4
R 6.43 10 7
T = =
8
= 5.8 10 3 K
e ( 1 )( 5.67 10

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