Rutherford Scattering & Nuclear Radius In the Rutherford scattering experiment, alpha particles are fired at a thin gold foil Initially, before interacting with the foil, the particles have kin...
Tunnelling Single potential wells lead to quantised energy levels and their associated wavefunctions The wavefunction extends throughout space However, for infinitely deep square wells the wavefunc...
The Uncertainty Principle The quantisation of energy levels and their associated wave functions leads to some surprising outcomes One of these outcomes is known as the uncertainty principle The unc...
The Wave Function Bohr showed that the angular momentum of an electron orbiting a hydrogen atom was quantised He also showed that the allowed electron energies were also quantised Unfortunately, th...
Quantization of Angular Momentum Angular momentum is a property of any spinning or rotating body, very similar to linear momentum In linear motion, momentum is the product of mass and velocity In r...
Pair Production & Annihilation Annihilation When a particle meets its antiparticle pair, the two will annihilate Annihilation is: When a particle meets its equivalent anti–particle they both ar...
Matter Waves De Broglie proposed that electrons travel through space as a wave This would explain why they can exhibit behaviour such as diffraction He therefore suggested that electrons must also ...
Solving Photoelectric Problems Since energy is always conserved, the energy of an incident photon is equal to: The work function + the maximum kinetic energy of the photoelectron The energy within ...
Observing the Photoelectric Effect The photoelectric effect can be observed on a gold leaf electroscope A plate of metal, usually zinc, is attached to a gold leaf, which initially has a negative ch...
