Photoelectric Effect Expirement [ENDORSED]

[Sunjum Singh 1I]

Can someone explain the experiment and it's significance? I didn't fully understand it in lecture.

[Ismail 1F]

The Photoelectric effect resulted from the results of the photoelectric experiment. The effect is when the electrons were ejected from a metal when the surface of the metal was exposed to ultraviolet radiation (Lavelle et.al, 153). The results were that the UV radiation had to be above a certain threshold value depending on the metal, electrons were ejected immediately, and the kinetic energy of the electrons increases with the frequency of the radiation. Hope that helps!

[Jasmine Emtage-1J]

To add to the previous comment, the experiment showed that high frequency light can eject electrons even if the light has low intensity. When the intensity of low frequency light was increased, the light still couldn't eject electrons from the metal surface because the frequency was the problem, not the intensity.

[Chiara Berruto 1K]

The experiment was key in discovering the one to one interaction between one photon and one electron. The experiment showed that electrons will only be expelled from the metal if the energy of each individual photon is high enough to remove an individual electron. More photons does not necessarily mean more electrons will be expelled if the energy of each electron is not high enough.

[Chem_Mod]

The above post does a good job in concisely explaining the significance.
To add a further interesting fact:

Einstein won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of law of the photoelectric effect, not for his work on general relativity for which he is so famous for.