Determination of Plancks constant and photoelectriceect

C. PolisseniFebruary 5, 2012
Abstract
We report the determination of the Plancksconstant through the photoelectric
e e c t b y the Millikans method [5]. I-V plots have beenbuilt for four dierent dierent
wavelengthsof the photons hitting the potassium Leyboldphotocell. By using dierent methods,
the cuto v o l t a g e h a s b e e n e s t i m a t e d a n d h e n c e t h e Plancks constant,
h
=6
.
62995

0
.
280432

10

34
m
2
kg/s
. The non-ideal behaviour of thephotocell has been investigated by measuringits quantum
eciency whose value is approx-imately 0.1% for blue light at 436

7
nm
1 Introduction
In 1887 E. Hertz observed that electrons areemitted by a particular material as a
c o n s e - q u e n c e o f t h e a b s o r p t i o n o f e l e c t r o m a g n e t i c radiation. This phenomenon know as
photo-e l e c t r i c e e c t p l a y e d a c r u c i a l r o l e i n t h e d e - veloment of the theory of quantum
mechanicsa n d t h e d e t e r m i n a t i o n o f P l a n c k s c o n s t a n t . I n 1 9 0 2 P . L e n a r d o b s e r v e d
t h i s e e c t w i t h t h e a p p a r a t s s h o w n b e l o w [ 1 ] . T h r o u g h t h i s experiment Lenard made the
following obser-vations, that cannot be explained by classicalphysics. No dalay was observed
between thel i g h t c o m i n g t o t h e c a t h o d e a n d t h e g e n e r a - t i o n o f c u r r e n t . I n
the classical
p i c t u r e h o w - e v e r , t h e c a t h o d e w a r m s u p b e f o r e t h e e m i s - sion of
electrons and this implies also a mini-mum light intensity, while this is not the casein Lenards
experiment. Moreover, the stop-p i n g p o t e n t i a l h a s b e e n f o u n d t o b e a f u n c - t i o n
of the photon frequency only and not aF i g u r e 1 : L a y o u t o f t h e
a p p a r a t u s u s e d b y L e n a r d . L i g h t a b s o r p t i o n i n t h e c a t h o d e a l - lows electrons to
travel to the anode generat-ing a current that it is measured and dependson the applied voltage
V.f u n c t i o n o f t h e t h e l i g h t i n t e n s i t y , w h i l e i n the classical picture a low intensity would
notm a k e t h e c a t h o d e h o t e n o u g h t o e m i t e l e c - trons. The stopping potential, also
known asc u t o v o l t a g e (
V
0
o b e y s t h e f o l l o w i n g r e l a - tion:
eV
0
=
h

(1)Plotting
eV
0
versus

for dierent materialsi n t h e c a t h o d e l e a d s t o a d i e r e n t i n t e r c e p t

but the slope of the line is constant andit is known as Plancks constant
h

=6
.
63

10

34
Js
.
2
T h e o r y
T h e e x p l a n a t i o n o f t h e n o n - c l a s s i c a l r e s u l t s obtained by Lenard in his experiment gave
A.E n s t e i n t h e N o b e l P r i z e a n d l e a d t o t h e d i s - covery of the corpuscolar nature of light,
i.e.1

the discovery of photons. Light in fact trav-els in quanta of energy

h
a n d i f t h i s e n e r g y is sucient it can immediately excite an elec-t r o n a n d p r o d u c e
c u r r e n t . T h e m i n i m u m e x - citation energy is the work function

, of theorder of few eV, while the maximum kineticenergy of the emitted electrons
f o l l o w s f r o m energy conservation in Fig. 2:12
m
e
v
2
max
=
h

=
eV
0
(2)A p h o t o n o f e n e r g y
h
c a n e x c i t e a n e l e c - Figure 2: Electron photoemission in the cath-o d e . T h e h i g h e s t
o c c u p i e d s t a t e i s t h e f e r m i level,
E
F

, and the energy required to excite anelectron from there to outside the potential isthe work
function.t r o n i n o n e o f t h e o c c u p i e d s t a t e s i n c l u d i n g the Fermi level, with the condition
that
h
isbigger than the work function

. H e r e a f r e e electron gas model has been assumed (see be-low), with the electrons conned in a
potentialwell of depth
V
.The work function plays an important rolei n d e t e r m i n i n g t h e p r o p e r t i e s o f a
m a t e r i a l with a dened conduction band and the cuto voltage. In this analysis,
the conductionband of the cathode was approximated to
af r e e e l e c t r o n g a s . T h e L e y b o l d p h o t o c e l l
i s i n f a c t c o n s t r u c t e d w i t h a p o t a s s i u m p h o - toemitter (cathode) and the outer
electronsin the conduction band are not signicantlyperturbed by the nuclei in this
m a t e r i a l [ 2 ] . T h e d e n s i t y o f s t a t e s o f a 3 d i m e n s i o n a l f r e e electron gas is
D
(
E
)=
L
3
2

h
3
(2
m
)
32

E
(3)where E denotes the energy and
L
3
the volumeof the system, assuming quadratic symmetry.I t i s p o s s i b l e t h e r e f o r e t o d e r i v e
t h e n u m b e r of avaiable states as
N
=
E
F
V

D
(
E
)
dE
=
A
(
E
32
F

U
)
32
) ( 4 ) w h e r e A i s a c o n s t a n t a n d V i s t h e d e p t h o f the potential and in
the particular experimenth e r e d e s c r i b e d i s t h e a p p l i e d v o l t a g e t o t h e c a t h o d e - a n o d e
s y s t e m . S i n c e t h e c u r r e n t i s proportional to the number of avaiable states[2], we
obtain
the follo wing expression
I

V
32
(5)On the other hand, if we consider more factorsthat can modify the photo current, such as
byN . M o r t o n a n d J . A b r a h a m [ 3 ] , w e n d t h e current to be proportional to
V
2
.The quantum eciency of the Leybold pho-tocell has also been studied in the experiment.It is
dened as the ratio between the producedc u r r e n t a n d t h e p h o t o n s e m i t t e d h i t t i n g
t h e cathode, or Q.E.
Q.E.
=
Electrons/SecondPhoton/Second
(6)or in mathematical terms,
Q.E.
=
IcheP
(7)w h e r e I i s t h e c u r r e n t , c t h e s p e e d o f l i g h t i n v a c u u m , h t h e P l a n c k s c o n s t a n t , e
the elec-trons charge, P the power and

the wave-lenght of light [4].

3
M e t h o d
The layout of the experiment can be foundin Fig. 3. Photons were
e m i t t e d b y a m e r - cury lamp that had specic emission wave-l e n g t h s
( 1 ) . L i g h t w a s t h e n c o l l e c t e d b y a lens with measured focal length of approxim a t e l y 2 0 c m ( 2 ) a n d t h e n a s p e c i c w a v e - length was selected using
interference lters2

Figure 3: Setup of the experiment for measur-ing the current produced by the movement
of photons due to their excitation.(3). Four lters were avaiable and the trans-m i s s i o n p e a k
i s g a u s s i a n d i s t r i b u t e d . T h e bandwidth FWHM and the transmission coe c i e n t s d e p e n d o n t h e f r e q u a n c y a s i n t h e table belo w..

( n m ) F W H M ( n m ) T r a n s . ( % ) V
i
o
l
e
t
4
0
5
9
.
2
4
0
B
l
u
e
4
3
6
7
.
4
4
5
G
r
e
e
n
5
4
6
8
.
8
5
0
Y
e
l
l
o
w
5
7
8
9
.
8
5
0
After passing through a interference
l t e r , light was collected by another lens with
10cmf o c a l l e n g t h ( 4 ) a n d t h e p h o t o n s w e r e c o l - l i m a t e d i n t o t h e L e y b o l d
photocell in ordert o e x c i t e e l e c t r o n s f r o m t h e c a t h o d e ( e m i t t e r ) ( 5 ) . I n a h i g h v a c u u m , e l e c t r o n s w o u l d travel from the potassium emitter to the
plat-i n u m w i r e l o o p c o l l e c t o r ( a n o d e ) a n d h e n c e p r o d u c e a c u r r e n t t h a t w a s
m e a s u r e d b y a Keithley Picoammeter Model 485 (7). A vari-a b l e v o l t a g e s o u r c e ( 6 ) w a s
a l s o a d o p t e d a c - cording to vary the voltage across the appara-t u s a n d m e a s u r e t h e c u t o
voltage
V
0
, pointa t w h i c h n o c u r r e n t w o u l d b e a b l e t o p a s s t h r o u g h t h e s y s t e m . T h e
picoammeter pre-sented big uctuations since the low currentwas of the order of

n A m p a n d t h i s w a s t a k e n into account when estimating the error.To demonstrate that the cut o
potential
V
0
is independent on the light intensity and it is afunction only of the photons wavelength, neu-tral density
lters were adopted. These lterscorresponded to a transmission percentage of 3 0 % , 5 0 % ,
7 0 % a n d 9 0 % a n d w e r e p l a c e d i n front of the mercury
lamp.M o r e o v e r , i n o r d e r t o m e a s u r e t h e p o w e r o f t h e e m i t t e d l i g h t a n d h e n c e
e s t i m a t e t h e quantum eciency of the Leybold photocell, apowermeter was adopted. This
method ho w-e v e r d i d n t s e e m t o g i v e a n e s t i m a t e o f t h e c o r r e c t e c i e n c y a s i t
w i l l b e l a t e r s h o w n i n the results.
4 Results and Analysis
4.1 Planck Constant
E s t i m a t i n g P l a n c k s c o n s t a n t t h r o u g h t h e photoelectric eect implies the cons
tructionof a plot of the cut o voltage
V
0
v s t h e p h o - ton frequency

. T h e c u r v e o b t a i n e d s h o u l d b e a s t r a i g h t l i n e a s i n E q . 1 , w i t h s l o p e p r o - portional
to the Plancks constant
h
. I n o r - der to measure the cut o potential variourplots have been generated
measuring, as byL e n a r d [ 1 ] , t h e c u r r e n t a t a f u n c t i o n o f t h e applied voltage
b e t w e e n c a t h o d e a n d a n o d e . A s i t i s p o s s i b l e t o n o t e i n F i g . 4 h o w e v e r , the
behaviour of the current is slightly dier-ent from the prediction. In fact, as the
voltageb e c o m e s n e g a t i v e , t h e c u r r e n t d o e s n o t g o t o z e r o , b u t i t r e a c h e s
a n e g a t i v e v a l u e . G i v e n the non-ideal behaviour of the photocell, var-i o u s m e t h o d s h a v e
b e e n a d o p t e d t o m e a s u r e the cut o voltage.Figure 4: Current as a function of the
appliedvoltage for various mercury lines. An anoma-lous behaviour was observed since the
currentdoes not drop to zero but reaches nevative val-ues.3