Photoelectric Effect - waves vs. photons
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Photoelectric Effect - waves vs. photons
In the photoelectric effect, do we look at the light as waves or photons? I keep getting confused with questions asking for example: if long wavelength light is not ejecting e- from a surface, will increasing intensity of light result in e- being ejected?? I think increasing the intensity of light will increase the number of photons and then e- will be ejected, but I'm not sure.
Re: Photoelectric Effect - waves vs. photons
The photoelectric effect describes light as having particle-like properties. Because of this, increasing intensity of long-wavelength light will not cause electrons to be ejected because each individual photon is interacting with individual electrons in the metal, so if the individual photons don't have enough energy to remove an electron then it won't matter how many photons there are (because none of them have enough energy to remove an e-).
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Re: Photoelectric Effect - waves vs. photons
For the photoelectric effect, light is seen as a particle. Increasing the intensity of light increases the number of electrons ejected, only if the frequency is large enough. Large frequency correlates to small wavelength, therefore even if you increase the intensity of light for a big wavelength of light, nothing will happen.
Re: Photoelectric Effect - waves vs. photons
Increasing intensity only increases the amount of photons not the energy of each individual photon. Light is acting as a particle in this case however in general light can act as a particle or a wave.
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