SHS

PHYSICAL SCIENCE
Quarter 2 – Module 4
Photons

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Physical Science– Grade 12
Quarter 2 – Module 4: Photons

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Regional Director: Gilbert T. Sadsad

Assistant Regional Director: Jessie L. Amin

Development Team of the Module

Writer: Rommel Carl R. Peralta

Editors/Reviewers: Jocelyn P. Navera, Brenly B. Mendoza, Kristina Nieves, Aster

Malto, Jeanine Cristobal and Kennette De la Fuente

Layout Artist: Jose P. Gamas, Jr.

Language Editor: Diana Desuyo

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Explain how photon concept and the fact that the energy of a photon is
directly proportional to its frequency can be used to explain why red light is
used in photographic dark rooms, why we get easily sunburned in ultraviolet
light but not in visible light and how we see colors.

(S11/12PS-ivg-64)

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 Supplementary Learning Module for Senior High School Learners

LESSON
PHOTON

In the previous grade level, you understood that

light can be in a form of wave and particle. In this
module, you will know that energy of the photon
depends on its frequency. Hence, you will be given activities to
enhance your understanding towards the relationship of energy of the photon and
photon frequency.

Imagine a shaft of yellow sunlight beaming

through a window. According to quantum physics
that beam is made of zillions of tiny packets of
light, called photons, streaming through the air.
But what exactly is a photon? Do you want to know
the properties of photons? Read on and accomplish
the tasks prepared for you in this module.

At the end of the module, you should be

able to:

• identify the properties of photons;

• describe the history of the discovery photons; and
• explain how the relationship between the energy of a
photon and its frequency can be used to explain why red light is
used in photographic dark rooms, why we get easily sunburned in ultraviolet light but
not in visible light and how see colors.

Directions: Choose the letter of the correct answer.

1. What is the mass of a photon?

a. Zero b. 2.23 X 10-15 kg c. 2.99 X 10-8 kg d. 4.00 X 10-20kg

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 2. What do you call to the particle of light which essentially is a packet of electromagnetic
radiation?
a. Protons b. Electrons c. Bosons d. Photons

3. Which of the following is CORRECT?

a. The higher the frequency, the more energy the photon has.
b. The lower the frequency, the more energy the photon has
c. The higher the frequency, the lower energy the photon has
d. The higher the frequency, the less energy the photon has

4. What is the charge of photon?

a. Positive b. Negative c. Either positive or negative d. No charge

5. What is the speed of a photon when it travels in an empty space?

a. 2 X 108 m/s b. b. 3 X 108 m/s c. c. 4 X 108 m/s d. d. 5 X 108 m/s

Hi! How did you find the test?

Please check your answers at the answer

key section and see how you did. Don’t worry if
you got a low score, this just means that there
are more things that you can learn from this
module. So, hop on!

JUMBLED LETTERS
Below are the persons behind the development of concept of
photons. Arrange the letters and match it to their accomplishment.

1. He discovered that light traveled in straight lines.

2. He argued that light is made of pulses that propagate instantaneously when contacting
‘balls’ in a medium.

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3. He showed how to make reflected, refracted, and screened waves of light and also
explained double refraction

4. He predicted an ‘electromagnetic wave’, which can self-sustain, even in a vacuum, in the

absence of conventional currents

5. He used the term Lichtquant, or quantum of light

CHOICES

SCDEARTES ELIDUC HGENSUY STEEIINN NTONWE XWELMAL

Good job in finishing the activity! Take note of the key concepts you had
written. These words might appear on the next activities.

PHOTON
Photon is a light’s particle which essentially a packet
of electromagnetic radiation. The energy of the photon is dependent on
its frequency . When the frequency is higher, the photon has more energy. Hence, a
beam of light has plenty of photons. With these, the red light (with plenty of photons, with low
energy) can carry high power energy to a given area than blue light (fewer photons with high
energy).
The speed of light (c) in a vacuum has a constant speed of 3x108 m/s. This is because
of more active and with high frequency photons like X-rays and gamma rays travel at exactly
the same speed as photons with lower energy and low frequency, like those in the infrared.
When the frequency of a photon rises, the wavelength (λ) falls, and as the frequency falls, the
wavelength rises. The equation that is connected to these three quantities for photons is:
c=λf
where: c = speed of light (3 x108 m/s)
λ = photon’s wavelength
f = photon’s frequency

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 Since wavelength and frequency are determined by each other, the formula for the
photons containing energy can be written in two different forms:

E=hf or E=hc
f
where: E = photon’s energy
h = Planck's constant (6.62606957(29)×10-34 J·s )
f = photon’s frequency
λ = photon’s wavelength
c = speed of light (3x108 m/s)

One of the oddest discoveries of quantum mechanics is that light and other particles,
like photons, different waves or particles depends on the kind experiment that evaluates them.
Light spreads out according to wavelength when it passes through a prism. In contrast,
bombard metal with light, and displays a particle side, where only photons that have greater
amount of energy release electrons. This experiment, called the photoelectric effect. This
was one of the reasons why won Einstein his Nobel Prize. Photons with inadequate energy
can hit metal, however, won't hit any loose electrons. Photons that surpass a verge of energy
usually do hit the loose electrons, but, as the photon's energy becomes greater than necessary
the probability that it ejects an electron reduces. Hence, a low summation of energy beam of
violet light might emit electrons from a specific metal, where a high energy red beam fails to
emit one. Even though each photon in the red beam has lower energy, it has more energy.
Thus, this discovery is the reason for the birth of quantum revolution.

Source:https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Photon#:~:text=A%20photon%20is%20a%20particle,more%20energy%20the%20p
hoton%20has.&text=The%20speed%20of%20light%20(c)%20in%20a%20vacuum%20is%20constant.

Photon Properties

Photons have basic properties, these are:

• Photons have zero mass and rest energy. It only exists as particles in motion.
• Photons are elementary particles even if it has lack of rest mass.
• Photons have zero electric charge.
• Photons are stable.
• Photons are spin-1 particles which converts them bosons.
• Photons have energy and momentum which are dependent on its frequency.
• Photons can interact with other particles like electrons in the Compton Effect.
• Photons can be destroyed or created by different natural means, for example when
radiation is absorbed or ejected.
• Photons travel as fast as speed of light when in empty space.

History

Light has a nature either as a particle or a wave. For a long time, philosophers and
scientists have debated about the matter that was barely resolved a century ago. Around the
sixth century BC, the branch of Hindu philosophy called Vaisheshika had a astonishing
physical perception about light. Like the ancient Greeks, believed that the world was based
on the elements of fire, earth, air, and water. Light was thought to be made of tejas, a very
fast-moving particle. It similar to the modern theory of light which is light is composed of
photons, a term that was in 1926 by Gilbert Lewis and Frithiof Wolfers.

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 In 300 BC, the ancient Greek philosopher Euclid underwent a huge scientific
breakthrough when he postulated that light travelled in straight path. He also described the
laws of reflection. A century later, Ptolemy complemented the laws of reflection by the
concepts of refraction. In 1021, the laws of refraction were formally established by Ibn al-
Haytham in his book Kitab al-Manazir, or Book of Optics.

During the Renaissance period, in the essay of René Descartes entitled La

dioptrique, he discussed that light is made of beats that propagate promptly when contacting
‘balls’ in a medium. Later in 1690, Christian Huygens in his writing entitled Traité de la
lumière discussed that light as compressible waves in a flexible medium which is similar to
sound waves. Huygens exhibited the reflection, refraction, and light’s screened waves and
elucidated the double refraction of light.

With these, scientists formulated two entrenched camps. One side believed that light
was in a form of waves while the other side believed that light is in a form of particles or
corpuscles. The corpuscularists Isaac Newton wasn’t fond at wave theory since that light
would be able to lose too far into the shadow.

In 18th century, corpuscular theory dominated the arguments about the nature of light.
But May 1801, Thomas Young introduced the two-slit experiment where he exhibited the
interference of light waves. In the first version of his experiment, he actually didn’t utilize two
slits, but rather used a single thin card. He simply covered a window by a piece of paper with
a very small hole which served to funnel a very thin light beam. Using the card in his hand,
Thomas Young witnessed how the single beam splits into two. The light that passed on the
one side of the card interfered with light from the other card’s side to generate fringes, which
could be seen on the opposite wall. Later, Thomas Young used this data to compute for the
wavelengths of the different light colors and came close to its modern values. The
demonstration showed a solid evidence that light was a in a form of a wave.

On the other hand, the corpuscularist movement was gaining steam after the recent
developments attributed to the polarization of light to some kind of asymmetry among the light
corpuscles. In 1821, the corpuscularist movement suffered a great defeat at the hand of
Augustin Fresnel who showed that polarization could be explained if light were a transverse
wave in form with no longitudinal vibration. Fresnel also came up with a detailed wave theory
of diffraction.

By this point, there was little stable status for the followers of Newton to continue the
debate. It appeared that light is in a form of a wave and that’s that. However, the problem was
that the fabled aether which is a mysterious medium required to support electromagnetic fields
and to result to laws of propagation of Fresnel which was lost despite best efforts of everyone
in order to find it.

Years later, a huge breakthrough came around 1861 when James Clerk Maxwell
summarized experimental and theoretical knowledge about electricity and magnetism in 20
different formulas. Maxwell predicted an electromagnetic wave, which can self-sustain, even
in a vacuum or in the absence of conventional currents. Hence, no aether is required for light
to propagate. He also predicted that the speed of this wave can be 310,740,000 m/s which
were just a few percentage of the exact value of the speed of light.

With this agreement, it seems that light and magnetism have affections of the same
substance, and light is an electromagnetic disturbance spread through the field. From that day
forward, the concept of light was joined for the first time with those of electricity and
magnetism.

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 On December 14, 1900, Max Planck exhibited that heat radiation was emitted and
absorbed in distinct packets of energy which is called quanta. In 1905, Albert Einstein
explained that quantum is also applied to light. Einstein used the terminology Lichtquant, or
quantum of light. Now, at the dawn of the 20th century, a new revolution in physics would once
again hinge on the nature of light. This moment, it is not about what light is if it is a crepuscule
or wave. It is whether it is both or not.

Modern Theory of Light and Photons

According to Albert Einstein, light is a particle in a form of photon which flow through a
wave. He was convinced that light had a particle form following his discovery about
photoelectric effect, in which electrons were emitted in the metal surface exposed to light.
That scenario could not have happened when light was a wave. Another mystifying matter is
the process on how photoelectrons multiply and generate and when strong light is applied.
Einstein discussed that photoelectric effect through mentioning that “light itself is a particle”.

The Einstein’s theory of light quantum explained that energy of light is related to its
oscillation frequency. He further explained that photons have energy which is equal to the
“Planck’s constant multiplied to oscillation frequency,” and this photon energy is the altitude of
the oscillation frequency while the light’s intensity corresponds to the amount of photons. The
properties of light, which is a type of electromagnetic wave, are due to the behaviour of very
small particles called photons that cannot be seen using the naked eye.

According to Einstein, when electrons within matter collides the photons, the former
receives the energy of latter and flies out and that the higher the oscillation frequency of the
photons that collide, the higher amount of electron energy will come flying out. A practical
example of this is the solar panels. Thus, light is a flow of photons, the energy of these photons
is the altitude of their oscillation frequency, and the light intensity of is related to the amount
of photons.

Source: https://lco.global/spacebook/light/light-
particle/#:~:text=Light%20behaves%20mainly%20like%20a,shorter%2
0wavelength%20photons%20have%20more.

Albert Einstein was able to prove his theory through deriving Planck’s constant from
his experiments on the photoelectric effect. His computation provided 6.6260755 x 10-34 as
Planck’s constant value which is exactly what Max Planck obtained in 1900. Clearly, this
pointed to a close relationship between the properties and the light’s oscillation frequency and

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the properties of light particle. In 1920s, Erwin Schrödinger discussed these ideas with using
his equation for the quantum wave function to show the appearance of the wave.

More than a century since Einstein exhibited the double nature of light, Swiss
physicists at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne showed the snapshot of thr dual
behavior of light for the first time. In 2015, the team of Fabrizio Carbone performed an
experiment in which a laser was utilized to fire onto a nanowire. This caused the electrons to
vibrate. Light travels along the tiny wire in two directions. When the light waves traveling in
opposite directions to meet each other, they form a new wave that is standing in place. Here,
this standing wave serves the light source for the experiment that radiates around the
nanowire. The result of this experiment acts as a fingerprint of the wave-nature of light.

Facts About Photons

• Not only is light made up of photons, but all electromagnetic energy (i.e. microwaves,
radio waves, X-rays) is made up of photons.
• The original concept of the photon was developed by Albert Einstein. However, it was
scientist Gilbert N. Lewis who first used the word “photon” to describe it.
• The theory that states that light behaves both like a wave and a particle is called the
wave-particle duality theory.
• Photons are always electrically neutral. They have no electrical charge.
• Photons do not decay on their own.

Source: Puiu, Tibi (2007), What exactly is a photon, https://www.zmescience.com/science/what-is-photon-

definition04322/#:~:text=A%20photon%20is%20the%20smallest,denoted%20by%20the%20letter%20c.

Directions: Write TRUE if the statement is correct and write FALSE

if the statement is incorrect.

1. Photons have zero mass and rest energy. They only exist as moving particles.
2. Photons are elementary particles despite lacking rest mass.
3. Photons have positive electric charge.
4. Photons are unstable.
5. Photons are spin-1 particle which makes them electrons.
6. Photons carry energy and momentum which are dependent on the frequency.
7. They can have interactions with other particles such as electrons.
8. They can be destroyed or created by many natural processes, for instance when
radiation is absorbed or emitted.
9. When in empty space, photon travels at the speed of light.
10. Proton is a particle of light which essentially is a packet of electromagnetic radiation.

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 Directions: Answer the following questions.

• Why does photographers used red light in producing pictures in

the dark room?
_______________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________

• Why do people get sunburned by ultraviolet light?

• _______________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________

Search for the technological application of photons in

our life. Categorize your findings according to the following
groups:
Medicine, Electricity, Electronic Devices
Write your answers in your notebook.

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 The following terms used in this module are
defined as follows:

BOSON. It is a particle that follows Bose–Einstein statistics. Bosons make up one of two
classes of elementary particles, the other being fermions.
ENERGY. It is the capacity for doing work. It may exist in potential, kinetic, thermal,
electrical, chemical, nuclear, or other various forms.
FREQUENCY. It is the number of waves that pass a fixed point in unit time; also, the number
of cycles or vibrations undergone during one unit of time by a body in periodic motion.
LIGHT. It refers to electromagnetic radiation of any wavelength, whether visible or not
PHOTON. It is a bundle of electromagnetic energy. It is the basic unit that makes up all light.
PHOTOELECTRIC EFFECT. It is a phenomenon in which electrically charged particles are
released from or within a material when it absorbs electromagnetic radiation.

Great! You have completed your learning

episodes in this module!

You are now ready to start a new learning

adventure in the next module.

Congratulations!

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 TRY THIS
1) A 2) D 3) A 4) D 5) B

DO THIS: Jumbled Letters

1) EUCLID 2) DESCARTES 3) HUYGENS 4) MAXWELL 5) EINSTEIN

Apply What You Have Learned

1) T 2) T 3) F 4) F 5) F 6) T 7) T 8) T 9) T 10) F

Assess What You Have Learned

1) The frequency of red light is low and hence the energy hv of photons is less.
2) Ultraviolet (UV) light is just a higher energy version of the light we see (visible light).
And it's that higher energy that makes the UV in sunlight damaging to our cells and
tissues. To do any damage, UV light has to be absorbed

Reflect

Answers may vary.

Reinforcement

Answers may vary.

EnergyEducation.https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Photon#:~:text=A%20photon%20i
s%20a%20particle,more%20energy%20the%20photon%20has.&text=The%20speed
%20of%20light%20(c)%20in%20a%20vacuum%20is%20constant.
Hobs, Bernie (2015). What does UV light do to our skin.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2015-11-18/how-uv-light-damages-our-
skin/6856742#:~:text=Send%20this%20by&text=But%20what%20exactly%20does%
20it,light%20has%20to%20be%20absorbed.
Puiu, Tibi (2007), What exactly is a photon, https://www.zmescience.com/science/what-is-
photon-
definition04322/#:~:text=A%20photon%20is%20the%20smallest,denoted%20by%20t
he%20letter%20c.

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