ME125BL Spring 2020

Homework 1, Due: Apr. 7 end of day. Upload to Gauchospace

1. Numbers and Units. It is essential for great engineers (as we are) to have a sense of the
numerical values of the length, time and energy scales associated with the problem at hand. This
exercise will familiarize you with some important numbers and units we frequently encounter in
radiative transfer problems.
(a) Electron-volt (eV) is a particularly convenient unit to describe the energy of microscopic energy
carriers, such as photons. It is the energy difference of one electron under a potential difference of
1 volt. Convert 1 eV into Joule.
(b) The typical scale for thermal energy at temperature T is kBT, where kB is the Boltzmann
constant. Convert 1 kBT at 300 K to Joule and milli-eV (meV, 10-3 eV).
(c) The energy of a photon with frequency 𝜈 is ℎ𝜈, where ℎ is Planck's constant. What is the
frequency of a photon with energy 1 eV? Write it in the unit of THz (teraHz, 1012 Hz). Show that
the energy and the wavelength of a photon satisfies:
energy in eV × wavelength in 𝜇𝑚 ≈ 1.24
This is a useful relation to memorize. What is the energy of photons with wavelength 400 nm
(blue), 550 nm (green) and 700 nm (red)?
(d) Another unit you will encounter in the literature related to radiative transfer is cm-1 (pronounced
'
"wavenumber"). The wavenumber of light with a wavelength of l cm is l cm-1. It is known that
CO2 has a strong absorption line at 1351 cm-1. What wavelength does it correspond to?

2. Internal Heat Generation of Earth. (Modest, 1.3) Assuming Earth to be a black sphere with
a surface temperature of 300 K at top of the atmosphere, what must Earth's internal heat generation
be in order to maintain that temperature (neglect radiation from the stars, but not the sun)?

3. Incandescent Bulb. Incandescent light bulbs work by electrically heating a metallic filament to
a high temperature so that it emits thermal radiation in the visible range. Assume a 50 W
incandescent bulb uses a tungsten filament with a diameter of 0.2 mm and a length of 30 mm
(ignore emission from the ends of the filament), the consumed electrical power (50 W) is all
radiated out by the filament, and the filament can be modeled as a blackbody.
(a) What is the temperature of the filament when the bulb works at 50 W?
(b) What is the wavelength of radiation with the highest emissive power?
(c) The radiation with wavelength between 400 nm and 700 nm is visible and thus is the "useful"
output from the light bulb. The ratio of emitted power within this wavelength range to the total
emitted power is defined as the efficiency of the bulb. Calculate the efficiency of the incandescent
bulb in this case. What is the "efficiency" of the sun by this definition?

PS: The efficiency of incandescent bulbs can be significantly increased by using a selective filter
that lets visible radiation pass through, but reflects invisible infrared radiation back to the emitter.
We will cover the basics of selective filters/absorbers/reflectors later in the class. If you are
interested, you can read the following reference:
Ilic et al., Tailoring high-temperature radiation and the resurrection of the incandescent source,
Nature Nanotechnology, 11, 320 (2016)