http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/hframe.

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Lasers

The stimulated emission of light is the crucial quantum process necessary for the
operation of a laser.

Population inversion Coherent light

Stimulated Emission
If an electron is already in an excited state (an upper energy level, in contrast to its lowest
possible level or "ground state"), then an incoming photon for which the quantum energy
is equal to the energy difference between its present level and a lower level can
"stimulate" a transition to that lower level, producing a second photon of the same energy.

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When a sizable population of electrons resides in upper levels, this condition is called a
"population inversion", and it sets the stage for stimulated emission of multiple photons.
This is the precondition for the light amplification which occurs in a laser, and since the
emitted photons have a definite time and phase relation to each other, the light has a high
degree of coherence.

Like absorption and emission, stimulated emission requires that the photon energy given
by the Planck relationship be equal to the energy separation of the participating pair of
quantum energy states.

Interaction of radiation with matter

Population inversion Coherent light

Quantum Processes
Quantum properties dominate the fields of atomic and molecular physics. Radiation is
quantized such that for a given frequency of radiation, there can be only one value of
quantum energy for the photons of that radiation. The energy levels of atoms and
molecules can have only certain quantized values. Transitions between these quantized
states occur by the photon processes absorption, emission, and stimulated emission. All
of these processes require that the photon energy given by the Planck relationship is equal
to the energy separation of the participating pair of quantum energy states.

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 Interaction of radiation with matter

Electromagnetic spectrum

Population Inversion
The achievement of a significant population inversion in atomic or molecular energy
states is a precondition for laser action. Electrons will normally reside in the lowest
available energy state. They can be elevated to excited states by absorption, but no
significant collection of electrons can be accumulated by absorption alone since both
spontaneous emission and stimulated emission will bring them back down.

A population inversion cannot be achieved with just two levels because the probabability
for absorption and for spontaneous emission is exactly the same, as shown by Einstein
and expressed in the Einstein A and B coefficients. The lifetime of a typical excited state
is about 10-8 seconds, so in practical terms, the electrons drop back down by photon
emission about as fast as you can pump them up to the upper level. The case of the
helium-neon laser illustrates one of the ways of achieving the necessary population
inversion.

Characteristics of Laser Light

1. Coherent. Different parts of the laser beam are related to each other in
phase. These phase relationships are maintained over long enough time so that
interference effects may be seen or recorded photographically. This coherence property is
what makes holograms possible.

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2. Monochromatic. Laser light consists of essentially one wavelength,
having its origin in stimulated emission from one set of atomic energy levels.

3. Collimated. Because of bouncing back between mirrored ends of a laser

cavity, those paths which sustain amplification must pass between the mirrors many times
and be very nearly perpendicular to the mirrors. As a result, laser beams are very narrow
and do not spread very much.

Coherent Light
Coherence is one of the unique properties of laser light. It arises from the stimulated
emission process which provides the amplification. Since a common stimulus triggers the
emission events which provide the amplified light, the emitted photons are "in step" and
have a definite phase relation to each other. This coherence is described in terms of
temporal coherence and spatial coherence, both of which are important in producing the
interference which is used to produce holograms.
Ordinary light is not coherent because
it comes from independent atoms
which emit on time scales of about
10^-8 seconds. There is a degree of
coherence in sources like the mercury
green line and some other useful
spectral sources, but their coherence
does not approach that of a laser.

Monochromatic Laser Light

The light from a laser typically comes from one atomic transition with a single precise
wavelength. So the laser light has a single spectral color and is almost the purest
monochromatic light available.

That being said, however, the laser light is not exactly monochromatic. The spectral
emission line from which it originates does have a finite width, if only from the Doppler
effect of the moving atoms or molecules from which it comes. Since the wavelength of
the light is extremely small compared to the size of the laser cavities used, then within
that tiny spectral bandwidth of the emission lines are many resonant modes of the laser
cavity.

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 Parallel Light from a Laser
The light from a typical laser emerges in an extremely thin beam with very little
divergence. Another way of saying this is that the beam is highly "collimated". An
ordinary laboratory helium-neon laser can be swept around the room and the red spot on
the back wall seems about the same size at that on a nearby wall.

The high degree of collimation arises from the fact that the cavity of the laser has very
nearly parallel front and back mirrors which constrain the final laser beam to a path
which is perpendicular to those mirrors. The back mirror is made almost perfectly
reflecting while the front mirror is about 99% reflecting, letting out about 1% of the
beam. This 1% is the output beam which you see. But the light has passed back and forth
between the mirrors many times in order to gain intensity by the stimulated emission of
more photons at the same wavelength. If the light is the slightest bit off axis, it will be
lost from the beam.

The highly collimated nature of the laser beam contributes both to its danger and to its
usefulness. You should never look directly into a laser beam, because the highly parallel
beams can focus to an almost microscopic dot on the retina of your eye, causing almost
instant damage to the retina. On the other hand, this capacity for sharp focusing
contributes to the both the medical applications and the industrial applications of the
laser. In medicine it is used as a sharp scalpel and in industry as a fast, powerful and
computer-controllable cutting tool.

Laser Applications
Medical applications Welding and Cutting Surveying

Garment industry Laser nuclear fusion Communication

Laser printing CDs and optical discs Spectroscopy

Heat treatment Barcode scanners Laser cooling

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 Medical Uses of Lasers
The highly collimated beam of a laser can be further focused to a microscopic dot of
extremely high energy density. This makes it useful as a cutting and cauterizing
instrument. Lasers are used for photocoagulation of the retina to halt retinal
hemorrhaging and for the tacking of retinal tears. Higher power lasers are used after
cataract surgery if the supportive membrane surrounding the implanted lens becomes
milky. Photodisruption of the membrane often can cause it to draw back like a shade,
almost instantly restoring vision. A focused laser can act as an extremely sharp scalpel for
delicate surgery, cauterizing as it cuts. ("Cauterizing" refers to long-standing medical
practices of using a hot instrument or a high frequency electrical probe to singe the tissue
around an incision, sealing off tiny blood vessels to stop bleeding.) The cauterizing action
is particularly important for surgical procedures in blood-rich tissue such as the liver.

Lasers have been used to make incisions half a micron wide, compared to about 80
microns for the diameter of a human hair.

Welding and Cutting

The highly collimated beam of a laser can be further focused to a microscopic dot of
extremely high energy density for welding and cutting.

The automobile industry makes extensive use of carbon dioxide lasers with powers up to
several kilowatts for computer controlled welding on auto assembly lines.

Garmire points out an interesting application of CO2 lasers to the welding of stainless
steel handles on copper cooking pots. A nearly impossible task for conventional welding
because of the great difference in thermal conductivities between stainless steel and
copper, it is done so quickly by the laser that the thermal conductivities are irrelevant.

Surveying and Ranging

Helium-neon and semiconductor lasers have become standard parts of the field surveyor's
equipment. A fast laser pulse is sent to a corner reflector at the point to be measured and
the time of reflection is measured to get the distance.

Some such surveying is long distance! The Apollo 11 and Apollo 14 astronauts put corner
reflectors on the surface of the Moon for determination of the Earth-Moon distance. A
powerful laser pulse from the MacDonald Observatory in Texas had spread to about a 3
km radius by the time it got to the Moon, but the reflection was strong enough to be
detected. We now know the range from the Moon to Texas within about 15 cm, a nine
significant digit measurement. A pulsed ruby laser was used for this measurement.

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 Lasers in the Garment Industry
Laser cutters are credited with keeping the U.S. garment industry competitive in the
world market. Computer controlled laser garment cutters can be programmed to cut out
400 size 6 and then 700 size 9 garments - and that might involve just a few cuts. The
programmed cutter can cut dozens to hundreds of thicknesses of cloth, and can cut out
every piece of the garment in a single run.

The usefulness of the laser for such cutting operations comes from the fact that the beam
is highly collimated and can be further focused to a microscopic dot of extremely high
energy density for cutting.

Laser Fusion
Laser fusion attempts to force nuclear fusion in tiny pellets or microballoons of a
deuterium-tritium mixture by zapping them with such a high energy density that they will
fuse before they have time to move away from each other. This is an example of inertial
confinement.

Two experimental laser fusion devices have been developed at Lawrence Livermore
Laboratory, called Shiva and Nova. They deliver high power bursts of lase light from
multiple lasers onto a small deuterium-tritium target. These lasers are neodynium glass
lasers which are capable of extremely high power pulses.

Lasers in Communication
Fiber optic cables are a major mode of communication partly because multiple signals
can be sent with high quality and low loss by light propagating along the fibers. The light
signals can be modulated with the information to be sent by either light emitting diodes
or lasers. The lasers have significant advantages because they are more nearly
monochromatic and this allows the pulse shape to be maintained better over long
distances. If a better pulse shape can be maintained, then the communication can be sent
at higher rates without overlap of the pulses. Ohanian quotes a factor of 10 advantage for
the laser modulators.

Telephone fiber drivers may be solid state lasers the size of a grain of sand and consume a
power of only half a milliwatt. Yet they can sent 50 million pulses per second into an
attached telephone fiber and encode over 600 simultaneous telephone conversations
(Ohanian).

Laser Printers

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The laser printer has in a few years become the dominant mode of printing in offices. It
employs a semiconductor laser and the xerography principle. The laser is focused and
scanned across a photoactive selenium coated drum where it produces a charge pattern
which mirrors the material to be printed. This drum then holds the particles of the toner to
transfer to paper which is rolled over the drum in the presence of heat. The typical laser
for this application is the aluminum-gallium-arsenide (AlGaAs) laser at 760 nm
wavelength, just into the infrared.

Compact Disc Audio

Analog sound data is digitized by sampling at 44.1 kHz and coding as binary numbers in
the pits on the compact disc. As the focused laser beam sweeps over the pits, it
reproduces the binary numbers in the detection circuitry. The same function as the "pits"
can be accomplished by magnetooptical recording. The digital signal is then reconverted
to analog form by a D/A converter.

The tracks on a compact disc are nominally spaced by 1.6 micrometers, close enough that
they are able to separate reflected light into it's component colors like a diffraction
grating.

This is an active graphic. Click on any bold text for further details.

Laser Spectroscopy
Absorption spectroscopy usually implies having a tunable frequency source and
producing a plot of absorption as a function of frequency. This was not feasible with

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lasers until the advent of the dye lasers which can be tuned over a nearly continuous
range of frequencies.

Laser spectroscopy has led to advances in the precision with which spectral line
frequencies can be measured, and this has fundamental significance for our understanding
of basic atomic processes. This precision has been obtained by passing two laser beams
through the absorption sample in opposite directions, selectively triggering absorption
only in those atoms that have a zero velocity component in the direction of the beams.
This effectively eliminates the Doppler broading of spectral lines from the distribution of
atomic velocities present in the sample.

Heat Treatment
Heat treatments for hardening or annealing have been long practiced in metallurgy. But
lasers offer some new possibilities for selective heat treatments of metal parts. For
example, lasers can provide localized heat treatments such as the hardening of the
surfaces of automobile camshafts. These shafts are manufactured to high precision, and if
the entire camshaft is heat treated, some warping will inevitably occur. But the working
surfaces of the cams can be heated quickly with a carbon dioxide laser and hardened
without appreciably affecting the remainder of the shaft, preserving the precision of
manufacture.

Barcode Scanners
Supermarket scanners typically use helium-neon lasers to scan the universal barcodes to
identify products. The laser beam bounces off a rotating mirror and scans the code,
sending a modulated beam to a light detector and then to a computer which has the
product information stored. Semiconductor lasers can also be used for this purpose.

Helium-Neon Laser

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 The most common and
inexpensive gas laser, the
helium-neon laser is usually
constructed to operate in the
red at 632.8 nm. It can also be
constructed to produce laser
action in the green at 543.5 nm
and in the infrared at 1523 nm.

One of the excited levels of

helium at 20.61 eV is very
close to a level in neon at 20.66
eV, so close in fact that upon
collision of a helium and a
neon atom, the energy can be
transferred from the helium to
the neon atom.

Helium-neon lasers are

common in the introductory
physics laboratories, but they
can still be dangerous!
According to Garmire, an
unfocused 1-mW HeNe laser
has a brightness equal to
sunshine on a clear day (0.1
watt/cm^2) and is just as
dangerous to stare at directly.

The helium gas in the laser tube provides the pumping medium to attain the necessary
population inversion for laser action.

Helium-Neon Laser
The most common and inexpensive gas laser, the helium-neon laser is usually constructed
to operate in the red at 632.8 nm. It can also be constructed to produce laser action in the
green at 543.5 nm and in the infrared at 1523 nm.

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The collimation of the beam is accomplished by mirrors on each end of the evacuated
glass tube which contains about 85% helium and 15% neon gas at 1/300 atmospheres
pressure (Metrologic). These mirrors could be both flat, but this requires great precision
in alignment, so the common laboratory He-Ne lasers are manufactured with the
semiconfocal mirror arrangement shown.

The helium gas in the laser tube provides the pumping medium to attain the necessary
population inversion for laser action.

Neodynium-YAG Laser
An example of a solid-state laser, the neodynium-YAG uses the Nd3+ ion to dope the
yttrium-aluminum-garnet (YAG) host crystal to produce the triplet geometry which
makes population inversion possible. Neodynium-YAG lasers have become very
important because they can be used to produce high powers. Such lasers have been
constructed to produce over a kilowatt of continuous laser power at 1065 nm and can
achieve extremely high powers in a pulsed mode.

Neodynium-YAG lasers are used in pulse mode in laser oscillators for the production of a
series of very short pulses for research with femtosecond time resolution.

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 Carbon Dioxide Laser
The carbon dioxide gas laser is capable of continuous output powers above 10 kilowatts.
It is also capable of extremely high power pulse operatin. It exhibits laser action at
several infrared frequencies but none in the visible. Operating in a manner similar to the
helium-neon laser, it employs an electric discharge for pumping, using a percentage of
nitrogen gas as a pumping gas.

The CO2 laser is the most efficient laser, capable of operating at more than 30%
efficiency. That's a lot more efficient than an ordinary incandescent light bulb at
producing visible light (about 90% of the output of a lightbulb filament is invisible).

The carbon dioxide laser finds many applications in industry, particularly for welding and
cutting.

Argon Laser
The argon ion laser can be operated as a continuous gas laser at about 25 different
wavelengths in the visible between 408.9 and 686.1nm, but is best known for its most
efficient transitions in the green at 488 nm and 514.5 nm. Operating at much higher
powers than the helium-neon gas laser, it is not uncommon to achieve 30 to 100 watts of
continuous power using several transitions. This output is produced in a hot plasma and
takes extremely high power, typically 9 to 12 kW, so these are large and expensive
devices.

Ruby Laser
The ruby laser is the first type of laser actually constructed, first demonstrated in 1960 by
T. H. Maiman. The ruby mineral (corundum) is aluminum oxide with a small
amount(about 0.05%) of chromium which gives it its characteristic pink or red color by
absorbing green and blue light.

The ruby laser is used as a pulsed laser, producing red light at 694.3 nm. After receiving a
pumping flash from the flash tube, the laser light emerges for as long as the excited atoms
persist in the ruby rod, which is typically about a millisecond.

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A pulsed ruby laser was used for the famous laser ranging experiment which was
conducted with a corner reflector placed on the Moon by the Apollo astronauts. This
determined the distance to the Moon with an accuracy of about 15 cm.

Laser Diodes
Laser action (with the resultant monochromatic and
coherent light output) can be achieved in a p-n
junction formed by two doped gallium arsenide
layers. The two ends of the structure need to be
optically flat and parallel with one end mirrored and
one partially reflective. The length of the junction
must be precisely related to the wavelength of the
light to be emitted. The junction is forward biased
and the recombination process produces light as in
the LED (incoherent). Above a certain current
threshold the photons moving parallel to the junction
can stimulate emission and initiate laser action.
Type Peak Power Wavelength Application
GaAs 5 mW 840 nm CD Players
AlGaAs 50 mW 760 nm Laser printers
GaInAsP 20 mW 1300 nm Fiber communications

Eximer Lasers
Eximer is a shortened form of "excited dimer", denoting the fact that the lasing medium
in this type of laser is an excited diatomic molecule. These lasers typically produce
ultraviolet pulses. They are under investigation for use in communicating with
submarines by conversion to blue-green light and pulsing from overhead satellites
through sea water to submarines below.

The eximers used are typically those formed by rare gases and halogens in electron-
excited gas discharges. Molecules like XeF are stable only in their excited states and
quickly dissociate when they make the transition to their ground state. This makes

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possible large population inversions because the ground state is depleted by this
dissociation. However, the excited states are very short-lived compared to other laser
metastable states, and lasers like the XeF eximer laser require high pumping rates.
Eximer lasers typically produce high power pulse outputs in the blue or ultraviolet after
excitation by fast electron-beam discharges.

Free-Electron Laser

The radiation from a free-electron laser is

produced from free electrons which are
forced to oscillate in a regular fashion by an
applied field. They are therefore more like
synchrotron light sources or microwave
tubes than like other lasers. They are able to
produce highly coherent, collimated
radiation over a wide range of frequencies.
The magnetic field arrangement which
produces the alternating field is commonly
called a "wiggler" magnet.

The free-electron laser is a highly tunable device which has been used to generate
coherent radiation from 10^-5 to 1 cm in wavelength. In some parts of this range, they are
the highest power source. Particularly in the mm wave range, the FELs exceed all other
sources in coherent power. FELs involve relativistic electron beams propagating in a
vacuum and can be tuned continuously, filling in frequency ranges which are not
reachable by other coherent sources.

Applications of free-electron lasers are envisioned in isotope separation, plasma heating

for nuclear fusion, long-range, high resolution radar, and particle acceleration in
accelerators.

Laser Spectroscopy
Absorption spectroscopy usually implies having a tunable frequency source and
producing a plot of absorption as a function of frequency. This was not feasible with
lasers until the advent of the dye lasers which can be tuned over a nearly continuous
range of frequencies.

Laser spectroscopy has led to advances in the precision with which spectral line
frequencies can be measured, and this has fundamental significance for our understanding

14
of basic atomic processes. This precision has been obtained by passing two laser beams
through the absorption sample in opposite directions, selectively triggering absorption
only in those atoms that have a zero velocity component in the direction of the beams.
This effectively eliminates the Doppler broading of spectral lines from the distribution of
atomic velocities present in the sample.

You may click on any of the types of radiation for more detail about its particular type of
interaction with matter. The different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum have very
different effects upon interaction with matter. Starting with low frequency radio waves,
the human body is quite transparent. (You can listen to your portable radio inside your
home since the waves pass freely through the walls of your house and even through the
person beside you!) As you move upward through microwaves and infrared to visible
light, you absorb more and more strongly. In the lower ultraviolet range, all the uv from
the sun is absorbed in a thin outer layer of your skin. As you move further up into the x-
ray region of the spectrum, you become transparent again, because most of the
mechanisms for absorption are gone. You then absorb only a small fraction of the
radiation, but that absorption involves the more violent ionization events. Each portion of
the electromagnetic spectrum has quantum energies appropriate for the excitation of
certain types of physical processes. The energy levels for all physical processes at the
atomic and molecular levels are quantized, and if there are no available quantized energy
levels with spacings which match the quantum energy of the incident radiation, then the
material will be transparent to that radiation, and it will pass through.

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 Microwaves, Radar
While there are some radar bands from 1,300 to 1,600 MHz, most microwave
applications fall in the range 3,000 to 30,000 MHz (3-30 GHz). Current microwave ovens
operate at a nominal frequency of 2450 MHz, a band assigned by the FCC. There are also
some amateur and radio navigation uses of the 3-30 GHz range. In interactions with
matter, microwave radiation primarily acts to set produce molecular rotation and torsion,
which manifests itself by heat. Molecular structure information can be obtained from the
analysis of molecular rotational spectra, the most precise way to determine bond lengths
and angles of molecules. Microwave radiation is also used in electron spin resonance
spectroscopy.

For microwave ovens and some radar applications, the microwaves are produced by
magnetrons.

Frequencies: 1.6-30 GHz

Wavelengths: 187 - 10 mm
Quantum energies: 0.66 x 10-5 - 0.12 x 10-3 eV

The Electromagnetic Spectrum

Click on any part of the spectrum for further detail.

Speed of light

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 Infrared
The term "infrared" refers to a broad range of frequencies, beginning at the top end of
those frequencies used for communication and extending up the the low frequency (red)
end of the visible spectrum. The wavelength range is from about 1 millimeter down to
750 nm. The range adjacent to the visible spectrum is called the "near infrared" and the
longer wavelength part is called "far infrared".
In interactions with matter, infrared primarily acts to set molecules into vibration.
Infrared spectrometers are widely used to study the vibrational spectra of molecules.
Frequencies: .003 - 4 x 1014 Hz
Wavelengths: 1 mm - 750 nm
Quantum energies: 0.0012 - 1.65 eV

Visible Light

The narrow visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum corresponds to the wavelengths
near the maximum of the Sun's radiation curve. In interactions with matter, visible light
primarily acts to set elevate electrons to higher energy levels.

White light may be separated into its spectral colors by dispersion in a prism.

Frequencies: 4 - 7.5 x 1014 Hz

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 Wavelengths: 750 - 400 nm
Quantum energies: 1.65 - 3.1 eV

Electromagnetic spectrum

Ultraviolet
The region just below the visible in wavelength is called the near ultraviolet. It is
absorbed very strongly by most solid substances, and even absorbed appreciably by air.
The shorter wavelengths reach the ionization energy for many molecules, so the far
ultraviolet has some of the dangers attendent to other ionizing radiation. The tissue
effects of ultraviolet include sunburn, but can have some therapeutic effects as well. The
sun is a strong source of ultraviolet radiation, but atmospheric absorption eliminates most
of the shorter wavelengths. The eyes are quite susceptible to damage from ultraviolet
radiation. Welders must wear protective eye shields because of the uv content of welding
arcs can inflame the eyes. Snow-blindness is another example of uv inflamation; the
snow reflects uv while most other substances absorb it strongly.

Frequencies: 7.5 x 1014 - 3 x 1016 Hz

Wavelengths: 400 nm - 10 nm
Quantum energies: 3.1 - 124 eV

X-Rays
X-ray was the name given to the highly penetrating rays which emanated when high
energy electrons struck a metal target. Within a short time of their discovery, they were
being used in medical facilities to image broken bones. We now know that they are high
frequency electromagnetic rays which are produced when the electrons are suddenly
decelerated - these rays are called bremsstrahlung radiation, or "braking radiation". X-
rays are also produced when electrons make transitions between lower atomic energy
levels in heavy elements. X-rays produced in this way have have definite energies just
like other line spectra from atomic electrons. They are called characteristic x-rays since
they have energies determined by the atomic energy levels.

In interactions with matter, x-rays are ionizing radiation and produce physiological
effects which are not observed with any exposure of non-ionizing radiation, such as the
risk of mutations or cancer in tissue.

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 X-rays are part of the Frequencies: 3 x 1016 Hz upward
Wavelengths: 10 nm - > downward
Electromagnetic spectrum
Quantum energies: 124 eV -> upward

Absorption and Emission

Taking the electron transitions associated with visible and ultraviolet interactions with
matter as an example, absorption of a photon will occur only when the quantum energy of
the photon precisely matches the energy gap between the initial and final states. In the
interaction of radiation with matter, if there is no pair of energy states such that the
photon energy can elevate the system from the lower to the upper state, then the matter
will be transparent to that radiation.

Photons: The Quanta of Light

According to the Planck hypothesis, all electromagnetic radiation is quantized and occurs
in finite "bundles" of energy which we call photons. The quantum of energy for a photon
is not Planck's constant h itself, but the product of h and the frequency. The quantization
implies that a photon of blue light of given frequency or wavelength will always have the
same size quantum of energy. For example, a photon of blue light of wavelength 450 nm
will always have 2.76 eV of energy. It occurs in quantized chunks of 2.76 eV, and you
can't have half a photon of blue light - it always occurs in precisely the same sized energy
chunks.

But the frequency available is continuous and has no upper or lower bound, so there is no
finite lower limit or upper limit on the possible energy of a photon. On the upper side,
there are practical limits because you have limited mechanisms for creating really high
energy photons. Low energy photons abound, but when you get below radio frequencies,
the photon energies are so tiny compared to room temperature thermal energy that you
really never see them as distinct quantized entities - they are swamped in the background.

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Another way to say it is that in the low frequency limits, things just blend in with the
classical treatment of things and a quantum treatment is not necessary.

The Photoelectric Effect

The remarkable aspects of the photoelectric
effect when it was first observed were:

1. The electrons were emitted

The details of the photoelectric effect were
in direct contradiction to the expectations of
very well developed classical physics.
The explanation marked one of the major
steps toward quantum theory.
immediately - no time lag!
2. Increasing the intensity of the light
increased the number of photoelectrons,
but not their maximum kinetic energy!
3. Red light will not cause the ejection
of electrons, no matter what the
intensity!
4. A weak violet light will eject only a
few electrons, but their maximum
kinetic energies are greater than those
for intense light of longer wavelengths!

Photoelectric Effect

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 Analysis of data from the photoelectric experiment showed
that the energy of the ejected electrons was proportional to the
frequency of the illuminating light. This showed that whatever
was knocking the electrons out had an energy proportional to
light frequency. The remarkable fact that the ejection energy
was independent of the total energy of illumination showed
that the interaction must be like that of a particle which gave
all of its energy to the electron! This fit in well with Planck's
hypothesis that light in the blackbody radiation experiment
could exist only in discrete bundles with energy

E = hν
Experiment

Photoelectric Effect

Most commonly observed phenomena with light can be explained by waves. But the
photoelectric effect suggested a particle nature for light.

Spectral Colors

In a rainbow or the separation of colors by a prism we see the continuous range of

spectral colors (the visible spectrum). A spectral color is composed of a single

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wavelength and can be correlated with wavelength as shown in the chart below ( a
general guide and not a precise statement about color). It is safe enough to say that
monochromatic light like the helium-neon laser is red (632 nm) or that the 3-2 transition
from the hydrogen spectrum is red ( 656 nm) because they fall in the appropriate
wavelength range. But most colored objects give off a range of wavelengths and the
characterization of color is much more than the statement of wavelength. Perceived
colors can be mapped on a chromaticity diagram.

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