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The photoelectric effect is the emission of electrons from a material caused by electromagnetic radiation such as ultraviolet light. Electrons emitted in this manner are called photoelectrons. The phenomenon is studied in condensed matter physics, solid state, and quantum chemistry to draw inferences about the properties of atoms, molecules and ...
Notable results from this period include Max Planck's calculation of the blackbody radiation spectrum, Albert Einstein's explanation of the photoelectric effect, Einstein and Peter Debye's work on the specific heat of solids, Niels Bohr and Hendrika Johanna van Leeuwen's proof that classical physics cannot account for diamagnetism, Bohr's model ...
To explain the photoelectric effect, Albert Einstein assumed heuristically in 1905 that an electromagnetic field consists of particles of energy of amount hν, where h is the Planck constant and ν is the wave frequency.
Quantum mechanics arose gradually from theories to explain observations that could not be reconciled with classical physics, such as Max Planck's solution in 1900 to the black-body radiation problem, and the correspondence between energy and frequency in Albert Einstein's 1905 paper, which explained the photoelectric effect.
The classic photomultiplier tube exploits the photoelectric effect: a photon of sufficient energy strikes a metal plate and knocks free an electron, initiating an ever-amplifying avalanche of electrons. Semiconductor charge-coupled device chips use a similar effect: an incident photon generates a charge on a microscopic capacitor that can be ...
The quantization of the photoelectric effect and now the quantization of the electron orbits set the stage for the final revolution. Throughout the first and the modern era of quantum mechanics the concept that classical mechanics must be valid macroscopically constrained possible quantum models.
Thomson scattering is a model for the effect of electromagnetic fields on electrons when the field energy is much less than the rest mass of the electron .In the model the electric field of the incident wave accelerates the charged particle, causing it, in turn, to emit radiation at the same frequency as the incident wave, and thus the wave is scattered.
1905 – Einstein explains the photoelectric effect by extending Planck's idea of light quanta, or photons, to the absorption and emission of photoelectrons. Einstein would later receive the Nobel Prize in Physics for this discovery, which launched the quantum revolution in physics.