CARREON, Vea Ysabel

DELFIN, Fatima Kent S.

EDICA, Cherrylane
11th grade – Thales of Miletus

3.2.9. LIGHT AS AN ELECTROMAGNETIC WAVE

Review of Electromagnetic Theory Development
 In 1820, Hans Christian Oersted, a Danish physicist and chemist, observed that when a
compass was placed near a current-carrying wire, the needle (a small magnet) changed
direction. But when there was no current passing through the wire, the needle did not
deflect.
 Jean Baptiste Biot and Felix Savart formulated the force of the magnetic field near a
current-carrying wire.
 Andre-Marie Ampere, a French Physicist, discovered the existence of a magnetic field
existed around a current-carrying wire loop whose direction depended on the direction of
the current.
 Michael Faraday found out that if a loop of wire is moved in a magnetic field, voltage is
induced and current is produced in the wire, which was called induced current and the
process is called electromagnetic induction.
o Law of Electromagnetic Induction – states that the electromotive force (emf)
induced in a conductor is directly proportional to the rate of change of magnetic
flux linking the circuit.
 Lenz’s Law – the direction of the induced current is always against the change in the
magnetic field that has produced it.
 James Maxwell, a Scottish physicist, was able to establish a system of equations
(Maxwell Equations) that describes how electric and magnetic fields are generated and
altered by each other.

3.3 THE PARTICLE NATURE OF LIGHT

3.3.1 THE PHOTON THEORY OF LIGHT AND PHOTOELECRIC EFFECT
 In the 1900s, Einstein resurrected the notion that light consists of particles. Particles of
light are concentrated bundles of electromagnetic energy.
 He used the idea of the German physicist, Max Planck, that atoms do not absorb or emit
light continuously, but rather do so in small chunks called quanta (plural: quantum).
 A quantum or a packet of light is called a photon.
 E = hf
  Photoelectric Effect is the ejection of electrons from photosensitive metals when light
falls upon them.
 The interaction of the light beam with the metal surface consists of collisions between
photons and electrons. During the collision, the photons give all their energy to the
electrons and disappear.

3.3.2 WAVE NATURE OF MATTER

 Louis de Broglie said that all matter have wavelengths equal to the quotient of Planck’s
constant, h, and momentum which is expressed as: λ = h/p a.k.a. de Broglie’s
Wavelength.
a. λ stands for the wavelength of the particle
b. h stands for Planck's Constant
c. p stands for the momentum of the particle
 Conventional method does not easily detect particles with large masses and small speeds.
They have too small wavelength unlike tiny particles such as protons and electrons
having observable wavelengths when moving at high speed.
 An application example for wave nature of matter is electron microscope which
wavelength of its electron beams is a thousand times shorter than the wavelength of
visible light.

Ex: What is the wavelength in meters of a proton traveling at 255,000,000 m/s (which is
85% of the speed of light)? (Assume the mass of the proton to be 1.673 x 10¯27 kg.)
1.) Calculate the kinetic energy of the proton:
KE = (1/2)mv2

x = (1/2) (1.673 x 10¯27 kg) (2.55 x 108 m/s)2

 x = 5.43934 x 10¯11 J
2.) Use the de Broglie equation:
λ = h/p

λ = h/√(2Em)

x = 6.626 x 10¯34 J s / √[(2) (5.43934 x 10¯11 J) (1.673 x 10¯27 kg)]

x = 1.55 x 10¯15 m
This wavelength is comparable to the radius of the nuclei of atoms, which range from 1 x
10¯15m to 10 x 10¯15 m (or 1 to 10 fm).

3.3.3 THE ATOMIC SPECTRA

 Niels Bohr said that the isolated atoms can absorb and emit packets of electromagnetic
radiation with discrete energies depending in the atomic structure of the atom. When
white light is passed through a spectrograph of prism and light is separated into its color
components depending on the wavelength.
 When atoms are excited they emit light of certain wavelengths which correspond to
different colors. The emitted light can be observed as a series of colored lines with dark
spaces in between; this series of colored lines is called a line or atomic spectra. Each
element produces a unique set of spectral lines. Since no two elements emit the same
spectral lines, elements can be identified by their line spectrum.