LECTURE 6

1. LINE SPECTRA
2. FRANK-HERTZ EXPERIMENT
3. CORRESPONDENCE PRINCIPLE

BY

FAISAL REHMAN
LINE SPECTRA
• The radiation from atoms can be classified into
i. Continuous spectra and
ii. Discrete or line spectra
• Continuous spectra: all wavelengths from some minimum, perhaps 0,
to some maximum, perhaps approaching ∞, are emitted.
• The radiation from a hot, glowing object is an example of this category.
• White light is a mixture of all of the different colors of visible light; an
object that glows white hot is emitting light at all wavelengths of the
visible spectrum.
• On the other hand, we force an electric discharge in a tube containing a
small amount of the gas or vapor of a certain element, such as mercury,
sodium, or neon, light is emitted at a few discrete wavelengths and not at
any others.
• The strong 436nm (blue) and 546nm (green) lines in the mercury emission
spectrum give mercury-vapor street lights their blue-green tint; the strong
yellow line at 590nm in the sodium spectrum (which is actually a doublet—
two very closely spaced lines) gives sodium-vapor street lights a softer,
yellowish color. The intense red lines of neon are responsible for the red
color of “neon signs.”
• Another possible experiment is to pass a beam of white light,
containing all wavelengths, through a sample of a gas.
• We find the wavelengths have been absorbed from the light, and
again a line spectrum results.
• In this case there are dark lines, superimposed on the bright
continuous spectrum, at the wavelengths where the absorption
occurred. These wavelengths correspond to many (but not all) of the
wavelengths seen in the emission spectrum.
• The interpretation of line spectra
is very difficult in complex
atoms, and so we will deal for
now with the line spectra of the
simplest atom, hydrogen.
• Regularities appear in both the
emission and absorption spectra,
as shown in Figure.
• With the mercury and sodium
spectra, some lines present in
the emission spectrum are
missing from the absorption
spectrum.
• In 1885 Johannes Balmer, a Swiss schoolteacher, noticed (mostly by
trial and error) that the wavelengths of the group of emission lines of
hydrogen in the visible region could be calculated very accurately
from the formula

• For example, for n=3, the formula gives λ =656.1nm, which

corresponds exactly to the longest wavelength of the series of
hydrogen lines in the visible region (see Figure 6.16). This formula is
now known as the Balmer formula and the series of lines that it fits is
called the Balmer series. The wavelength 364.5 nm, corresponding to
n→∞, is called the series limit
• It was soon discovered that all of the groupings of lines in the hydrogen
spectrum could be fit with a similar formula of the form

• Where λ limit is the wavelength of the appropriate series limit. For the
Balmer series, n0 = 2. The other series are today known as Lyman (n0 =1),
Paschen (n0 =3), Brackett(n0 =4),and Pfund(n0 =5).
• Another interesting property of the hydrogen wavelengths is summarized in
the Ritz combination principle.
• If we convert the hydrogen emission wavelengths to frequencies, we find the
curious property that certain pairs of frequencies added together give other
frequencies that appear in the spectrum. Any successful model of the
hydrogen atom must be able to explain the occurrence of these interesting
arithmetic regularities in the emission spectra.
 THE FRANCK-HERTZ EXPERIMENT
• Apparatus shown in Figure
• A filament heats the cathode, which then
emits electrons.
• These electrons are accelerated toward
the grid by the potential difference V,
which we control.
• Electrons pass through the grid and reach
the plate if V exceeds V0, a small retarding
voltage between the grid and the plate.
• The current of electrons reaching the plate
is measured using the ammeter A.
• Now suppose the tube is filled with atomic hydrogen gas at a low
pressure. As the voltage is increased from zero, more and more electrons
reach the plate, and the current rises accordingly.
• The electrons inside the tube may make collisions with atoms of
hydrogen, but lose no energy in these collisions—the collisions are
perfectly elastic. The only way the electron can give up energy in a
collision is if the electron has enough energy to cause the hydrogen atom
to make a transition to an excited state.
• Thus, when the energy of the electrons reaches and barely exceeds 10.2
eV(or when the voltage reaches 10.2 V), the electrons can make inelastic
collisions, leaving 10.2eV of energy with the atom (now in the n=2 level),
and the original electron moves off with very little energy.
• If it should pass through the grid, the electron might not have
sufficient energy to overcome the small retarding potential and reach
the plate.
• Thus when V =10.2 V, a drop in the current is observed.
• As V is increased further, we begin to see the effects of multiple
collisions. That is, when V =20.4 V, an electron can make an inelastic
collision, leaving the atom in the n=2 state.
• The electron loses 10.2eV of energy in this process, and so it moves
off after the collision with a remaining 10.2eV of energy, which is
sufficient to excite a second hydrogen atom in an inelastic collision.
• Thus, if a drop in the current is observed at V, similar drops are
observed at 2V, 3V,....
• This experiment should thus give rather direct evidence for the
existence of atomic excited states.
• Unfortunately, it is not easy to do this experiment with hydrogen,
because hydrogen occurs naturally in the molecular form H2, rather
than in atomic form.
• The molecules can absorb energy in a variety of ways, which would
confuse the interpretation of the experiment.
Experiment and Results
• Experiment was done in 1914 by
James Franck and Gustav Hertz,
using a tube filled with mercury
vapor.
• results are shown in Figure 6.22,
which gives clear evidence for an
excited state at 4.9eV; whenever
the voltage is a multiple of 4.9 V,
a drop in the current appears.
• Coincidentally, the emission spectrum of mercury shows an intense
ultraviolet line of wavelength 254nm, which corresponds to an energy
of 4.9eV; this results from a transition between the same 4.9-eV
excited state and the ground state.
• The Franck-Hertz experiment showed that an electron must have a
certain minimum energy to make an inelastic collision with an atom;
we now interpret that minimum energy as the energy of an excited
state of the atom.
• Franck and Hertz were awarded the 1925 Nobel Prize in physics for
this work.
THE CORRESPONDENCE PRINCIPLE