Photoelectric Effect
Photoelectric Effect
Photoelectric Effect
Properties of photons:
i) It has zero rest mass. i.e. the photon cannot exist at rest.
ii) Photons travel in a straight line.
iii) Energy of a photon depends upon its frequency and the energy is
quantized.
When the potential is decreased, the current decreases but does not
become zero at zero potential
This shows that even in the absence of accelerating potential, a few
photoelectrons manage to reach the plate on their own due to their
K.E.
When negative potential is applied to the plate A with respect to C,
photoelectric current becomes zero at a particular value of negative
potential called stopping potential or cut-off potential.
Intensity of incident light does not affect the stopping potential.
For a fixed intensity of incident light, the photoelectric current does not
depend on the frequency of the incident light. Because, the photoelectric
current simply depends on the number of photoelectrons emitted and in turn
on the number of photons incident and not on the energy of photons.
Threshold Frequency:
The graph of stopping potential and frequency does not pass through
the origin. It shows that there is a minimum value of frequency called
threshold frequency below which photoelectric emission is not possible
however high the intensity of incident light may be. It depends on the
nature of the metal emitting photoelectrons.
Questions
𝑾
𝑰𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒏𝒔𝒊𝒕𝒚(𝒎𝟐 ) = 𝑷𝒐𝒘𝒆𝒓/𝑨𝒓𝒆𝒂
𝑬𝒏𝒆𝒓𝒈𝒚 𝒐𝒇 𝒂 𝒑𝒉𝒐𝒕𝒐𝒏 = 𝒉𝒇