chaPtEr 1

:
BlackBody

radiation
 SCOPE OF STUDY
Concept of black body

SUB TOPICS

Stefan’s Law, energy Wien’s displacement

spectrum law
 introduction
The black body notion is important in studying thermal radiation and
electromagnetic radiation energy transfer in all wavelength bands.

Black body as an ideal radiation absorber and it is used as a standard

for comparison with the radiation of real physical bodies.

This notion and its characteristics are sometimes are used in

describing and studying artificial, quasi deterministic electromagnetic
radiation (in radio and TV- broadcasting and communication).
Concept of black body

Black
Black Body
Body

An ideal body which absorbs all the electromagnetic

radiation that strikes it so that all incident radiation is

completely absorbed.
Concept of black body
Why black body??

Because those bodies that absorb incident visible light well seem
black to the human eye.

Example: We can hardly characterize our sun which is indeed

almost a black body within a very wide band of electromagnetic
radiation wavelength as a black physical object in optics. It is namely
bright-white sunlight which represents the equilibrium black body
radiation.
Concept of black body
Application :

Optical band (surfaces approach an ideal black body in their

ability to absorb radiation) such as soot, silicon carbide, platinum and
golden niellos.

Earth surfaces (water surfaces, ice, land) absorb infrared radiation

well and in thermal IR band, these physical objects are ideal black
bodies.
Concept of black body
Concept of black body
Black
Black body
body radiation
radiation //
Cavity
Cavity radiation
radiation

The electromagnetic radiation that would be

radiated from an ideal black body

Concept of black body
Where are the black body radiation comes from??
Sources of black body radiation :
Cosmic microwave background (CMB) of the universe –
fluctuation electromagnetic radiation that fills the part of the universe.
 the radiation possesses nearly isotropic spatial-angular field with an
intensity that can be characterized by the radio brightness temperature of
2.73K.
 to determine accuracy, direction and velocity of motion of the solar
system.
 as a re-reflected radiation to investigate the emissive characteristics
of terrestrial surfaces.
Concept of black body
The Sun
 the presence of thermal black body radiation with a brightness
temperature of 5800K at the Sun.
 along with a black body radiation, there exist powerful, non-
stationary quasi-noise radiation (flares, storms).

The Earth
 possesses radiation close to black body radiation with a
thermodynamic temperature of 287K.
Concept of black body
Blackbody radiation is emitted as a broad spectrum of wavelengths

Figure
Figure::The
Thecharacteristic
characteristicgraph
graphof
ofthe
thethermal
thermalradiation
radiationemitted
emittedby
by
aahot
hotobject
object
 Energy spectrum

EM Radiation : A kind of radiation including visible light, radio

waves, gamma rays, and X-rays, in which electric and magnetic fields
vary simultaneously.

Energy spectrum based on the EM spectrum.

EM Spectrum : The distribution of electromagnetic radiation

according to energy (or equivalently, by virtue of the relations in the
previous section, according to frequency or wavelength).
Energy spectrum
 Energy spectrum
Spectrum of Electromagnetic Radiation
Region Wavelength Wavelength Frequency Energy
(Angstroms) (centimeters) (Hz) (eV)

Radio > 109 > 10 < 3 x 109 < 10-5

Microwave 109 - 106 10 - 0.01 3 x 109 - 3 x 1012 10-5 - 0.01

Infrared 106 - 7000 0.01 - 7 x 10-5 3 x 1012 - 4.3 x 1014 0.01 - 2

Visible 7000 - 4000 7 x 10-5 - 4 x 10-5 4.3 x 1014 - 7.5 x 1014 2-3

Ultraviolet 4000 - 10 4 x 10-5 - 10-7 7.5 x 1014 - 3 x 1017 3 - 103

X-Rays 10 - 0.1 10-7 - 10-9 3 x 1017 - 3 x 1019 103 - 105

Gamma Rays < 0.1 < 10-9 > 3 x 1019 > 105
black body RADIATION
LAWS

Laws

Stefan’s Wein’s
Law Displacement
Law
 Stefan’s law

Stefan’s
Stefan’s Law
Law or
or Stefan’s
Stefan’s Boltzmann’s
Boltzmann’s Law
Law

The energy radiated by a blackbody radiator per second

per unit area is proportional to the fourth power of

the absolute temperature.

 Stefan’s law
Formula

where P = Energy/ time = Power

A = Area
T = Temperature
σ = Stefan-Boltzmann constant
 Stefan’s law

Stefan’s Law (1879, 1884)

 Josef Stefan deduced the rule in 1879 and Ludwig Boltzmann
provided a formal derivation in 1884.
 Classical physics
 Explain the growth in the height of the curve as the
temperature increase.
 Energy emitted increase rapidly with an increase in
temperature which is proportional to the temperature raised to the
fourth power.
 Stefan’s law
For hot objects other than ideal radiators, the law is expressed in the form:

where e is the emissivity of the object (e = 1 for ideal radiator).

e = characteristic of the surface of the radiating material ( 0 < e < 1)
black surface such as charcoal, e close to 1, shinny metal surfaces have e
close to 0 (emit less radiation and absorb little radiation that falls upon them).
e depends on the temperature of material.
Black and very dark object is good emitter and good absorber.
Example : The light-colored clothing is preferable to dark clothing on a hot
day.
 Stefan’s law

If the hot object is radiating energy to its cooler surroundings at

temperature Tc, the net radiation loss rate takes the form

The above equation is valid for T = T1 = temperature of the surface area of

the object and Tc = T2 = Temperature of surrounding

wein’s displacement law

Wein’s
Wein’s
Displacement
Displacement Law,
Law,
1893
1893

 The
 The wavelength
wavelength distribution
distribution peaks
peaks at
at aa
value
value that
that isis inversely
inversely proportional
proportional to
to the
the
temperature.
temperature.
wein’s displacement law

λλmax
max
=
= c
c =
= 2.898x10
2.898x10 -3
-3
Formula
Formula
T TT

Unit constant, c : meter per Kelvin (m/K)

The ratio of the maximum wavelengths for two temperatures, T and T',
wein’s displacement law

Wien's Law tells us that objects of different temperature emit spectra

that peak at different wavelengths.

Hotter objects emit most of their radiation at shorter wavelengths,

hence they will appear to be bluer .

Cooler objects emit most of their radiation at longer wavelengths,

hence they will appear to be redder.

Furthermore, at any wavelength, a hotter object radiates more (is

more luminous) than a cooler one.

wein’s displacement law
wein’s displacement law

Temperature , T ( ), Radiated energy, E ( ), Wavelength, λ ( )

wein’s displacement law

Black body thermal emission intensity as a function of wavelength

for various (absolute) temperatures.
wein’s displacement law
Examples:

•Light from the Sun and Moon. The surface temperature (or more correctly, the
effective temperature) of the Sun is 5778 K. Using Wien's law, this temperature
corresponds to a peak emission at a wavelength of 2.90 × 10 6 nm-K / 5778 K = 502
nm = about 5000 Å. This wavelength is (not incidentally) fairly in the middle of the
most sensitive part of land animal visual spectrum acuity.

•Light from incandescent bulbs and fires. A lightbulb has a glowing wire with a
somewhat lower temperature, resulting in yellow light, and something that is "red
hot" is again a little less hot. It is easy to calculate that a wood fire at 1500 K puts
out peak radiation at 2.90 × 106 nm-K / 1500 K = 1900 nm = 19,000 Å. This is far
more energy in the infrared than in the visible band, which ends about 7500 Å.
wein’s displacement law
•Radiation from mammals and the living human body. Mammals at roughly 300 K
emit peak radiation at 2900 μm-K / 300 K ~ 10 μm, in the far infrared. This is,
therefore, the range of infrared wavelengths that pit viper snakes and passive IR
cameras must sense.

•The wavelength of radiation from the Big Bang. A typical application of Wien's
law would also be to the blackbody radiation resulting from the Big Bang.
Remembering that Wien's displacement constant is about 3 mm-K, and the
temperature of the Big Bang background radiation is about 3 K (actually 2.7 K), it is
apparent that the microwave background of the sky peaks in power at 2.9 mm-K / 2.7
K = just over 1 mm wavelength in the microwave spectrum. This provides a
convenient rule of thumb for why microwave equipment must be sensitive on both
sides of this frequency band, in order to do effective research on the cosmic
microwave background.
 ~ ~The end~ ~

“If you really want to

do somethIng, you wIll
fInd a way. If you don't,
you wIll fInd an
excuse.“
-JIm rohn-