![]() Overall, Millikan's work helped establish the foundations of modern quantum mechanics and provided crucial insights into the nature of light and matter. This constant describes the relationship between the energy of a photon and its frequency, and plays a critical role in understanding the behavior of subatomic particles. The slope of the plotted data from Millikan's experiments was used to obtain the value of Planck's constant, a fundamental constant in quantum mechanics. This helped establish the particle nature of light and led to the discovery of the photoelectric effect. He found that light needed to have a minimum frequency, or "cut-off frequency," to release electric charges from the metallic plate's surface. ![]() Millikan's experiments also demonstrated a connection between wavelength and frequency. These findings challenged his earlier idea that electrons would not be produced. He conducted experiments in a vacuum and found that electrons were still ejected when radiation impacted the metal. Robert Millikan's experiments were crucial in establishing the particle nature of light. This was the first observation of the photoelectric effect.Įxperiments established that increasing the intensity of the light does not change the energy of the expelled electrons He found that the spark length increased when he used a glass box, and increased further when he replaced it with a quartz box. Lenard used a powerful arc lamp to conduct his experiment. This was one of Lenard's most important contributions, and is known as the photoelectric effect. Instead, the energy of the electrons depended only on the wavelength of the light. Lenard's experiment showed that the energy of the electrons jumping between the plates was not affected by the intensity of the light. ![]() This finding led to the development of the concept of the photoelectric effect. Thomson discovered that the particles jumped from the surface with a larger electric charge to one with a smaller charge. He also noted that the electric charges responsible for the electric sparks had the same mass/charge ratio as the electrons. Thomson found that the UV light pushed electric charges from one metallic surface to the other. Thomson, a British physicist, continued the work of Heinrich Hertz and discovered that the effect observed by Hertz was caused by the UV light shining onto the metal plates. At the time, scientists didn't know why this was happening, but they were intrigued by the concept of electricity flowing more easily in the presence of UV light.ĭuring Hertz’s experiments, UV light shone onto a charged metallic object, causing the electrons to move out of the plate What was interesting is that when UV light shone onto the charged surfaces, electric sparks occurred more easily. If the difference was large enough, an electric spark would occur, and electric charges would flow through the gap. He found that when the two surfaces had different electric charges, it caused a voltage difference. German physicist Heinrich Hertz conducted experiments using electrically charged metal surfaces with a gap between them. They called it ‘the photoelectric effect’ and it's still used today! The experiments of Heinrich Hertz Later, Albert Einstein and Max Planck explained the theory behind this phenomenon. They experimented with metallic plates and light to see how electrons reacted to photons. Thomson, Philippard, and Robert Millikan discovered that radiation can carry energy to particles. This is because of a cool thing called quantum phenomena! The discovery of the photoelectric effect When photons excite electrons, they can jump from their normal positions or even leave the atom entirely. Think of it like a force moving a car: the photons are the force and the electrons are the car. This creates a connection between radiation and particles. ![]() Electromagnetic radiation is a type of energy that can give energy to particles like electrons.
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