The Photoelectric Effect

Charge up a piece of zinc. (Make it negatively charged)

Shine electromagnetic (E-M) radiation on it starting with very long waves - e.g. radio waves.
Nothing happens!

No matter how intense (bright) you make the waves... nothing!

Gradually shorten the wavelength of the E-M radiation and when you get to the U-V region,
suddenly the zinc discharges. Even at a low intensity the effect will occur.

There is a threshold frequency, fo, at which it starts to discharge.

What is going on?

Well, the E-M radiation is causing the electrons to leave the metal, making it discharge. We
call these electrons photoelectrons. The idea of electromagnetic radiation making electrons
leave isn't as crazy as it at first seems.

Why?

Because E-M waves deliver energy so if they deliver enough energy to a particular electron,
surely that electron could use the energy to leave the metal surface.

The problem is that low frequency (long wavelength) radiation won't do it but waves of
higher frequency will. Wave theory says that any wave will deliver energy so surely if you
shine any radiation onto the metal for long enough eventually enough energy will be
delivered to allow electrons to leave. Also, if you increase the intensity of the radiation, the
effect should occur sooner. But no!

The effect can only be explained if you realise that E-M radiation does not always behave
like a wave - a smooth continuous stream of energy being delivered to a point. In this case
you can only explain the photoelectric effect if E-M radiation is behaving like lumps or
packets of energy being delivered one by one. We call these lumps quanta or photons.

Photon Energy

Let's look at these photons. What determines the amount of energy in each photon?

Answer: The energy of a photon, E is given by E = hf

where h = Planck's constant and f = the frequency of the radiation.

So the greater the frequency, the greater the energy.

Note: E = hf can be written as as

So greater values of λ mean smaller values of energy.

OK - so in E-M radiation of one frequency you have all the photons with the same energy.
Billions of packets of energy being delivered every second.

Photons and Electrons

So what happens when the photons arrive? Let's look back at the case of the zinc plate at the
start of this section. The photons arrive and interact with (hit !) electrons in the metal. Now
here's a useful rule to follow.

Each photon only interacts with one electron.

It delivers its energy to the electron and disappears (because it is a packet of pure energy and
nothing else.) So the electron now has extra energy. What can it do with it? Well, if it has
enough extra energy it can leave the metal atom. Of course that means that only photons
delivering enough energy will cause electrons to leave the metal.

So only photons above the threshold frequency, fo, will cause photoelectric emission.

How come more intense (brighter) radiation doesn't cause emission?

More intense radiation simply means that more packets of energy (photons) are delivered
each second. But the energy of each packet is unchanged. So if there wasn't enough energy to
cause photoelectric emission, making it brighter won't change anything.

Does every photon produce a photoelectron?

Assuming we're above the threshold frequency, there are other things to think about when the
photon arrives.
Photons can easily pass between or even through atoms without hitting (interacting with) an
electron. So when they do finally hit an electron, there are a number of possible scenarios.

1. The photon hits an electron at the surface of the metal. The electron uses the energy
that it has gained to leave the atom and head off to freedom. That's an easy one.
2. The photon hits an electron at the surface of the metal. The electron leaves the atom
but heads off deeper into the metal and never manages to escape.
3. The photon passes deep into the metal before it hits an electron. The electron leaves
the atom and heads towards the surface and escapes!
4. The photon passes deep into the metal before it hits an electron. The electron leaves
the atom and heads towards the surface but it doesn't have enough energy to push its
way past all the other atoms to get to the surface so it grinds to a halt still inside the
metal and never escapes.
5. The photon passes deep into the metal before it hits an electron. The electron leaves
the atom and heads off in the wrong direction and never escapes.

So in fact a very small proportion of the photons that arrive at the metal will cause
photoelectrons to be emitted.

Einstein's Photoelectric Equation

Einstein looked at the way in which electrons tried to leave the metal. He established that it
actually takes energy for an electron to leave the surface of the metal. He called this energy
the work function, Φ.

He then applied the Conservation of Energy Principle for an electron receiving energy and
leaving the metal. Compare energy received and used by the electron at the surface.

Energy supplied to the electron = hf (energy from the photon)

Energy used by the electron is either:

used as work function, Φ, to escape from the surface

or is left with the electron after it has escaped, in which case it is in the form of Ek.

So for each electron at the surface which leaves the metal:

Energy supplied = energy used

Or hf = Φ + Ekmax

This is Einstein's Photoelectric Equation.

The Ekmax is there because only those electrons on the surface will have the maximum kinetic
energy on leaving.

Electrons from deep inside which make it to the surface and still have enough energy to
escape will have used some energy getting to the surface. These electrons will therefore have
less energy left once they are free of the metal and so they will have Ek less than the
maximum possible.

Notice that if you consider the special case where the energy of the arriving photons is hfo
(i.e. the energy of the threshold frequency photons), even the electrons on the surface will
only have enough energy to overcome the work function and no more.

So once they have escaped they will have no energy left. Their Ek = zero. In this case, the
photoelectric equation becomes:

hf0 = Φ

This is a useful way of calculating the work function for a material.

Also it allows you to rewrite the Photoelectric equation as follows:

Or Photoelectric Current

Set up this circuit.

The photons arriving at the metal plate cause photoelectrons to be emitted. The plate is called
the "emitter". Those electrons that cross the gap are collected at the other metal plate - called
"the collector". This flow of electrons across the gap sets up an emf between the plates that
causes a current to flow around the rest of the circuit. That's a photoelectric cell producing
a photoelectric current.

Stopping Potential, Vs

Set up this circuit:

The emitter gives out electrons. So we call it a cathode.

If the emf of the power supply is initially zero, the circuit works just like the one above this.
As the supply is turned up, the emitter becomes more positive (because it is connected to the
positive terminal of the supply).

So electrons leaving it are attracted back towards it. If they leave with enough energy they
can overcome this attraction and cross to the collector. If they don't have enough energy, they
can't cross the gap.

By increasing the emf of the supply you can find the pd at which no electrons are able to
cross the gap. Even those with the maximum energy, Ekmax, can't do it.

At that point, the energy needed to cross the gap = maximum Ek of the electrons.

If you remember, work done moving a charge through a pd is W = QV and in this case
charge, Q = e, the charge on an electron, then

Using this information you can calculate the maximum energy of the photoelectrons emitted
from the metal.

Rewrite the photoelectric equation (from about 3 screens above this point) as

or

Plot a graph of the results and you get:

Obviously, nothing happens unless you get photons with energy above the threshold value, fo.
After that, increasing the frequency of the photons increases the maximum kinetic energy of
the photoelectrons so stopping them takes a larger value of stopping potential.

The gradient of this graph is . This is one method of calculating h, Planck's constant.