QUANTUM PHYSICS Energy and momentum of a

photon
 SYLLA
BUS
22.1 Energy and momentum of a photon
Candidates should be able to:
1 understand that electromagnetic radiation has a particulate nature
2 understand that a photon is a quantum of electromagnetic energy
3 recall and use
4 use the electronvolt (eV) as a unit of energy
5 understand that a photon has momentum and that the momentum is given by
 QUANTUM PHYSICS

‘Those who are not truly shocked when they first come across quantum
theory cannot possibly have understood it,’ Niels Bohr, physicist.
Quantum physics is amongst the most modern areas within the field of
physics, having been established at the end of the nineteenth century and
the beginning of the twentieth century.
It took many of the finest minds in the history of physics to explain, what
were back then, some of the greatest mysteries and unsolved problems
surrounding the behaviour of light, atoms and subatomic particles.
Einstein, Bohr, Planck, de Broglie all failed then, eventually, succeeded to
explain the tiny world of the atom through the use of a new physics.
To this day, quantum physics remains one of the most strange, most
difficult, most inexplicable but ultimately fascinating areas of science.
It was so unbelievably strange at the time of its discovery and development
that many in the scientific community simply could not cope with its weird
complexities.
It continues to baffle many today – although its success is beyond dispute
and it explains, beautifully, the dual nature of light – the world where the
light wave behaves as both wave and particle and where the electron
behaves as both particle and wave.
 A BRIEF HISTORY OF IDEAS ABOUT
LIGHT
In 1672, the English physicist Isaac Newton suggested that light was composed of a
stream of tiny ‘corpuscles’ (particles), moving in straight lines from a light source.
He supported this theory with his own laws of motion and showed that both reflection
and refraction could be explained in terms of these particles either bouncing off a
surface or travelling more quickly as they move from a less dense to a more dense
medium.
Conversely, the Dutch physicist Christiaan Huygens suggested in 1678 that light was a
wave, like sound.
His wave theory could also explain refraction and reflection.
Unlike Newton’s corpuscular theory, Huygens’ theory predicted that a light wave
would slow down when it passed from a less dense to a more medium, such as from
air into water.
This was later found to be correct.
Huygens’ theory was also used by others to predict that light would diffract if it passed
through a small gap or around very small objects, and that interference would then
occur.
Although most scientists of that time dismissed Huygens’ theory, in 1801 Thomas
Young’s double slit experiment showed that light did indeed behave like a wave.
By passing a coherent source of light through a surface with two small slits, Young
showed that the light diffracted, overlapped and interfered to produce bright and dark
‘fringes’ of light – something that could only be explained by a wave theory of light
 THE QUANTUM MODEL

In 1900, Max Planck’s work on the electromagnetic radiation emitted by hot objects,
such as stars or a red-hot glowing lump of metal, made him realise that the radiated
energy could not have continuous values.
Instead Planck hypothesised that the total radiated energy had to be emitted in
packets, with each packet or quantum having a definite, fixed amount of energy.
 THE PHOTON
MODEL
At the time, Planck and other physicists did not realise the full implications of the
quantum idea.
However in 1905 Einstein used this idea to show that atoms absorb and emit light in
individual packets of energy.
As we shall see later, Einstein’s explanation opened up the paradox that light
sometimes behaves in ways that can only be explained by thinking of it as consisting
of particles.
The French aristocrat and physicist Louis de Broglie showed that light could behave
as both a particle and a wave.
Initially he was ridiculed and his PhD thesis proposing this was rejected, but later
this idea was shown to be valid. Quanta of light or other electromagnetic energy
became known as photons.
 PHOTONS
Light is said to be an electromagnetic wave consisting of oscillating electric
and magnetic fields.
This was Maxwell’s great discovery in the 19th century.
The wave has some wavelength and a frequency and, as with all waves, the
wave speed is given by:

where in this case the wave speed is the speed of light.

Through Maxwell’s theory, complex phenomena such as diffraction,
interference, and others could be understood.
The successful application of Maxwell’s theory meant that light was
definitely and without any doubt a wave.
It therefore came as a shock that, in a phenomenon known as the
photoelectric effect, light did not behave as a wave.
When Max Planck was investigating black body radiation, he suggested
that electromagnetic (EM) waves can only be released in discrete packets.
He proposed mathematically that electromagnetic radiation did not exist as
continuous waves but as discrete bundles (quanta) of energy, called quanta.
The word ‘quantum’ means a fixed indivisible amount.
For example, we say that charge is quantised because all electric charges
are made up of a whole number multiple of ‘fixed’ electron charges (that is,
1.60×10−19C).
A beam of light of frequency is a very large number of these quanta
moving at the speed of light.
The total energy of the beam is then the product of (the energy of one
quantum) times the number of quanta in the beam.
The energy of the beam is therefore an integral multiple of the basic unit.
No amount of energy less than would ever be found in the beam.
These quanta have definite energy and are localised in space; this means
that they behave as particles.
But the theory of relativity states that if a particle moves at the speed of
light it has to have zero mass.
So this quantum of light, which came to be known as the photon, is a
particle with zero mass and zero electric charge
EM waves (and the energy they carry) can only exist in discrete packets.
These wave-packets are called photons.
One photon is one quantum of energy of electromagnetic radiation.
A photon is a neutral particle, has no mass or charge and is described by its
energy, wavelength or frequency.
The photon would either transfer all or none of its energy when interacting with
one other particle (this is called a one-to-one interaction).
The energy, E, carried by one of these photons had to be:
So, the higher the frequency of the electromagnetic radiation, the more
energy its photons carry.
The frequency, wavelength and speed of light are related by the equation:

You can substitute this equation into to give another equation for the
energy of one photon:
 NUMERICAL
How much energy is carried by a photon of red light of wavelength 600 nm?
Given,

Required
photon energy (E)
Analysis and Solution
Since wavelength is given, first find the frequency using the equation , where c is the speed of
light, f is frequency, and is the wavelength.

Then substitute into Planck’s formula:

A red photon of light carries of energy.

Your eye can detect as few as 500 photons of light. The eye is most sensitive to light having a
wavelength of 510 nm. What is the minimum amount of light energy that your eye can detect?
Given

Required

Analysis and Solution

Since only wavelength is given, determine frequency using the equation

Then apply Planck’s formula:

Your eye is capable of responding to as little as of energy.

How many photons are emitted each second by a laser pointer that has a power output of 0.400 mW if
the average wavelength produced by the pointer is 600 nm?
Given
W
Required

Analysis and Solution

Since , the laser pointer is emitting. Therefore, in 1 s the laser pointer emits of energy.
By equating this amount of energy to the energy carried by the 600-nm photons, you can determine
how many photons are emitted each second using the equation .
First use the equation to determine the frequency of a 600-nm photon:
Substitute this equation into Planck’s formula.

A laser that emits photons each second has a power output of 0.400 mW.
 PHOTONS FROM A LIGHT BULB
In converting electrical energy into light energy, a 60-watt incandescent light bulb operates at about
2.1% efficiency.
Assuming that all the light is green light (wavelength 555 nm), determine the number of photons per
second given off by the bulb.
The number of photons emitted per second can be found by dividing the amount of light energy
emitted per second by the energy E of one photon. The energy of a single photon is.
The frequency f of the photon is related to its wavelength by Equation.
At an efficiency of 2.1%, the light energy emitted per second by a sixty-watt bulb is
.
The energy of a single photon is
 INTENSITY
The intensity of electromagnetic radiation is the energy transferred per unit
time per unit area.
The intensity depends on the energy carried by photons, the number of
photons transferred each second and the area on which they are incident.
The intensity increases:
when the light source is made more powerful, so more photons are
transferred per second;
for example, the intensity of light from a 100 W bulb is greater than
the intensity from a 10 W bulb if all other factors remain the same
when each photon transfers more energy;
for example, a beam of ultraviolet photons is more powerful than a
beam transferring the same number of infrared photons per second
when the light is incident on a smaller area;
for example, when you move closer to a light source, more light
energy enters your eye each second, and you sense a greater
intensity of light.
Intensity follows an inverse square law, so the intensity of light measured
from a light source quadruples if you half the distance away from the same
light source.
 THE ELECTRON
VOLT
Electrons inside atoms can absorb photons and gain energy.
They may gain enough energy to move further from the nucleus into a higher energy
level or leave the atom altogether.
The energy carried by a photon and the energy gained by electrons are so small that we
use a different unit of energy for these changes.
The unit of energy is called the electron volt, eV.
An electron volt is the energy needed to move an electron through a potential difference
of one volt.
When charge flows around an electrical circuit, 1 joule of work is done moving 1
coulomb of charge through a potential difference of 1 volt.
In the same way, work is done moving electrons in an electric field.
An electron volt (eV) is a unit of energy equal to 1.6 × 10−19 J.
It is the energy gained by an electron when it is accelerated through a potential
The work done in electron volts is calculated using:

Where
is the energy transferred in electron volts
is the potential difference in volts
is the electron charge, 1.6 × 10−19C.
Since the charge on an electron is 1.6 × 10−19C, the energy transferred per
electron volt is 1.6 × 10−19 J.
To convert joules to electron volts, divide the energy in joules by
1.6 × 10−19J/eV.
To convert electron volts to joules, multiply the energy in electron volts by
1.6 × 10−19J/eV
 PHOTON
MOMENTUM
Einstein’s photon concept applies to all regions of the electromagnetic spectrum, including radio
waves, rays, and so on.
A single photon of any electromagnetic radiation with frequency f and wavelength λ has the total
energy E given by Eq.

Because a photon always travels at the speed of light, it is truly a relativistic particle.
The total energy of an object (from the special theory of relativity) is the total of the rest energy
and kinetic energy, given by (the first term in the equation is a kinetic energy term and the
second term is the rest mass energy term).
For a photon the second term is zero (photons have no rest mass) so or.
Thus the wavelength λ of a photon and the magnitude of its momentum p are related simply by
(Momentum of a photon)
The direction of the photon’s momentum is simply the direction in which the electromagnetic
wave is moving.
Photon momentum and force.
Suppose the 1019photons emitted per second from a bulb. The light were all focused onto a piece
of black paper and absorbed. (a) Calculate the momentum of one photon and (b) estimate the
force all these photons could exert on the paper. [Average wavelength of light =500nm.]
Solution:
Each photon’s momentum is obtained from , Next, each absorbed photon’s momentum changes
from to zero. We use Newton’s second law, to get the force. Let’s assume an average
wavelength in the middle of the visible spectrum,.
(a) Each photon has a momentum

(b) Using Newton’s second law for photons whose momentum changes from to 0, we obtain
 EFFICIENCY OF
PHOTOSYNTHESIS.
In photosynthesis, pigments such as chlorophyll in plants capture the energy of sunlight to change to
useful carbohydrate. About nine photons are needed to transform one molecule of to carbohydrate
and . Assuming light of wavelength (chlorophyll absorbs most strongly in the range 650 nm to 700
nm), how efficient is the photosynthetic process? The reverse chemical reaction releases an energy of
of so is needed to transform to carbohydrate.
Solution:
The energy of nine photons each of energy , is

Thus the process is about 29% efficient.