22.

3 Wave-particle
duality
 Syllabus
Candidates should be able to:
1 understand that the photoelectric effect provides evidence for a particulate
nature of electromagnetic radiation while phenomena such as interference
and diffraction provide evidence for a wave nature
2 describe and interpret qualitatively the evidence provided by electron
diffraction for the wave nature of particles
3 understand the de Broglie wavelength as the wavelength associated with a
moving particle
4 recall and use λ = h / p
 Wave-particle duality
• Is light a particle or a wave?
• Diffraction
• When a beam of light passes through a narrow
gap, it spreads out.
• This is called diffraction (You will learn it in detail
in waves).
• Diffraction can only be explained using waves.
• If the light was acting as a particle, the light
particles in the beam would either not get
through the gap (if they were too big), or just
pass straight through and the beam would be
unchanged.
• The photoelectric effect
• The results of photoelectric effect experiments (we already
discussed) can only be explained by thinking of light as a series of
particle-like photons.
• If a photon of light is a discrete bundle of energy, then it can
interact with an electron in a one-to-one way.
• All the energy in the photon is given to one electron.
• The photoelectric effect and diffraction show that light behaves as
both a particle and a wave — this is an example of a phenomenon
known as wave-particle duality.
• Some experiments indicate that light behaves like a wave; others indicate that
it behaves like a stream of particles.
• These two theories seem to be incompatible, but both have been shown to
have validity.
• Physicists finally came to the conclusion that this duality of light must be
accepted as a fact of life. It is referred to as the wave-particle duality.
• To clarify the situation, the great Danish physicist Niels Bohr (1885–1962)
proposed his famous principle of complementarity.
• It states that to understand an experiment, sometimes we find an explanation
using wave theory and sometimes using particle theory.
• Yet we must be aware of both the wave and particle aspects of light if we are
to have a full understanding of light. Therefore these two aspects of light
complement one another.
 Wave Nature of Matter
• Light and other electromagnetic radiation sometimes act like
wave and sometimes like particles.
• Interference, diffraction demonstrate wave behavior, while
emissions and absorptions of photons demonstrate the particle
behavior.
• If light waves can behave like particles, can the particles of
matter behave like waves?
• As we will discover, the answer is a resounding yes.
• Electrons can be made to interfere and diffract just like other
kinds of waves.
• In 1924 a French physicist and nobleman, Prince Louis de Broglie
(pronounced “de broy”), made a remarkable proposal about the
nature of matter.
• His reasoning, freely paraphrased, went like this:
• Nature loves symmetry. Light is dualistic in nature, behaving in
some situations like waves and in others like particles.
• If nature is symmetric, this duality should also hold for matter.
• Electrons and protons, which we usually think of as particles,
may in some situations behave like waves.
• If a particle acts like a wave, it should have a wavelength and a
frequency.
• De Broglie postulated that a free particle with rest mass m, moving
with nonrelativistic speed should have a wavelength related to its
momentum p.
• The de Broglie wavelength of a particle is then

• where h is Planck’s constant.

• De Broglie’s proposal was a bold one, made at a time when there was
no direct experimental evidence that particles have wave
characteristics.
• But within a few years of de Broglie’s publication of his ideas, they
were resoundingly verified by a diffraction experiment with electrons.
 Matter waves
• In his 1924 PhD thesis, the French physicist, Louis de Broglie, used the
ideas of symmetry to suggest that if something classically considered to be
a wave had particle-like properties, the opposite would also be true.
• Matter could, therefore, also have wave-like properties.
• He suggested that the wavelength λ associated with a particle is given by
•
• Here h is the Planck constant and p is the momentum of the particle (=
mv). This wavelength is known as the de Broglie wavelength.
• De Broglie used ideas from the special theory of relativity and the
photoelectric effect in order to derive this equation for light (you don’t
need to learn this derivation).
• With this equation derived for light, de Broglie simply speculated
that the same thing would be true for matter, and very soon he
was shown to be correct!
• Many physicists at the time weren’t very impressed — his ideas
were just speculation.
• But later experiments confirmed the wave nature of electrons.
• Electron Diffraction shows the Wave Nature of Electrons
 Evidence for de Broglie's hypothesis

• The wave-like nature of electrons was discovered when, three years after
de Broglie put forward his hypothesis, it was demonstrated that a beam
of electrons can be diffracted.

• Figure shows in outline how this is done. After this discovery, further
experimental evidence, using other types of particles, confirmed the
correctness of de Broglie's theory.
• A narrow beam of electrons in a vacuum tube is directed at a thin metal
foil. A metal is composed of many tiny crystalline regions.
• Each region, or grain, consists of positive ions arranged in fixed positions in
rows in a regular pattern.
• The rows of atoms cause the electrons in the beam to be diffracted, just
as a beam of light is diffracted when it passes through a slit.
• The electrons in the beam pass through the metal foil and are diffracted in
certain directions only, as shown in Figure.
• They form a pattern of rings on a fluorescent screen at the end of the
tube.
• Each ring is due to electrons diffracted by the same amount from grains of
different orientations, at the same angle to the incident beam.
• The beam of electrons is produced by attracting electrons from a
heated filament wire to a positively charged metal plate, which has
a small hole at its centre.
• Electrons that pass through the hole form the beam.
• The speed of these electrons can be increased by increasing the
potential difference between the filament and the metal plate.
• This makes the diffraction rings smaller, because the increase of
speed makes the de Broglie wavelength smaller.
• So less diffraction occurs and the rings become smaller.
 Electron diffraction

• In 1925, two American physicists, Clinton Davisson and Lester

Germer, demonstrated de Broglie’s hypothesis experimentally by
observing interference maxima when a beam of electrons was
reflected by a nickel crystal.
• In 1928, the British physicist George Thomson independently
repeated Davisson and Germer’s work at the University of
Aberdeen.
• Figure (a) and (b) shows a laboratory arrangement for demonstrating the
effect using the transmission of electrons through a thin slice of crystal.
• Electrons from a heated cathode pass through a thin film of carbon atoms
(the crystal).
• If the electrons behaved like particles they would be only slightly
deviated by collisions with the carbon atoms and would form a bright
region in the centre of the screen.
• The bright rings indicate where the electrons land on the screen.
• Where there is a bright glow there is a high probability of electrons
reaching that point – where there is darkness there is a low probability of
the electrons reaching that point. The same pattern builds up slowly, even
if there are only a few electrons travelling in the tube at any one time.
• This pattern is very similar to the interference pattern that is obtained with
light using a diffraction grating and can be explained by assuming that
electrons behave in a similar way to waves:
• When electrons are accelerated through a potential difference they gain
kinetic energy
•
• Assuming that the accelerated electrons do not travel close to the speed
of light then the momentum of the electrons is given by , meaning that
• So

• And
• using de Broglie relationship

• this gives
• The wavelength we get from this relation is similar to the wavelength of
the X-rays used to form diffraction patterns when they are incident on
crystals.
• Increasing the accelerating voltage increases the energy and momentum
of the electrons.
• The wavelength, therefore, decreases and so produces smaller diameter
rings with smaller spacing between them.
• This is analogous to light passing through a diffraction grating:
• the diffraction angle (θ) in the equation is reduced when light of a shorter
wavelength is used.
 Beyond the electrons

• The de Broglie equation can be applied to all particles.

• Like electrons, protons and neutrons have been shown to have
wave properties –they form diffraction patterns.
• However, as particles become larger their wave properties
become harder to observe.
• The mass of the individual protons is much greater than the
electrons, so at the same speed their momentum is significantly
greater and therefore their wavelength is much smaller, and much
harder to observe.
 Section summary

• Make sure you know...

• That diffraction shows that light behaves like a wave, but the photoelectric
effect shows that light behaves like a particle.
• The idea of wave-particle duality — that waves display particle-like properties
and particles display wave-like properties.
• How to use the de Broglie equation, , which relates wavelength (a wave
property) to momentum (a particle property).
• That electrons are diffracted when they travel through a thin sheet of
polycrystalline graphite.
• That electron diffraction supports the theory of wave-particle duality.
 Sample
Questions
• 1.Electrons travelling at a speed of 3.50 × 106 ms–1 exhibit wave properties.
• a) Calculate the wavelength of these electrons. (Mass of an electron =
9.11 × 10–31 kg) [2 marks]
• [1marks]
• [1marks]
• b) Calculate the speed of protons with the same wavelength as these
electrons. (Mass of a proton = 1.67 × 10-27 kg) [2 marks]
• [1marks]
• [1marks]
• [1marks]
• [1marks]
• c) Some electrons and protons were accelerated from rest by the same
potential difference, giving them the same kinetic energy. Explain why they will
have different wavelengths. [3 marks]
• The proton has a larger mass, so it will have a smaller speed, since the two have
the same kinetic energy [1 marks].
• Kinetic energy is proportional to the square of the speed, while momentum is
proportional to the speed, so they will have different momenta
[1 marks].
• Wavelength depends on the momentum, so the wavelengths will be different
[1 marks].
• 2. A student sets up an experiment in which electrons emitted from a sample
of aluminium by the photoelectric effect are accelerated away from the
sample by a potential difference. The sample is illuminated with light of
frequency 2.10 × 1015 Hz. Determine the accelerating potential difference
required for the emitted photoelectrons to have a minimum de Broglie
wavelength of 415 pm. (h = 6.63 × 10–34 Js, me = 9.11 × 10–31 kg) work function
of aluminium=6.56 ×10-19 J [ 5marks]
• The de Broglie wavelength is , so for a photoelectron to have a minimum de
Broglie wavelength, it must
have a maximum velocity, e.g.
• [1marks]
• Photoelectrons with a velocity of have an energy:

• [1marks]
• The electrons emitted from the aluminium have an initial maximum kinetic
energy:

• [1marks]
• The difference in energy is the kinetic energy provided by the accelerating
voltage:
• [1marks]
• Convert this energy into electron volts, as 1 V provides 1 eV of energy to
an electron:

• So the accelerating potential difference [1 mark]

 CAIE Past Papers

• 11. An electron has charge –q and mass m. It is accelerated from rest in a

vacuum through a potential difference V.
• (a) Show that the momentum p of the accelerated electron is given by
• [2]
• loss of (electric) potential energy = gain in kinetic energy
• (b) The potential difference V through which the electron is accelerated is
120V.
• (i) State what is meant by the de Broglie wavelength. [2]
• particle/electron has a wavelength (associated with it)
• dependent on its momentum or when/because particle is moving
• (ii) Calculate the de Broglie wavelength of the electron. [3]
• (c)The separation of copper atoms in a copper crystal is approximately 2×10–
10
m.
• By reference to your answer in (b)(ii), suggest whether electron diffraction
could be observed using a beam of electrons that have been accelerated
through a potential difference of 120V and are then incident on a thin copper
crystal. [2]
• wavelength is similar to separation of atoms
• so diffraction observed
• 9702/M/J/42/2017
• 6. (a) Explain what is meant by a photon. [2]
• packet/quantum/discrete amount of energy
• of electromagnetic energy/radiation/waves
• (b) An X-ray photon of energy 3.06 × 10–14 J is incident on an isolated
stationary electron, as illustrated in Fig. 6.1.
• The photon is deflected elastically by the electron through angle θ. The
deflected photon has a wavelength of 6.80 × 10–12 m.
• (i) On Fig. 6.1, draw an arrow to indicate a possible initial direction of
motion of the electron after the photon has been deflected.
[1]
• arrow below axis and pointing to right
• (ii) Calculate
• 1. the energy of the deflected photon,
[2]

• 2. the speed of the electron after the photon has been deflected.
[3]
• (c) Explain why the magnitude of the final momentum of the electron is
not equal to the change in magnitude of the momentum of the photon. [2]
• momentum is a vector quantity
• either must consider momentum in two directions
• direction changes so cannot just consider magnitude
• 9702/M/J/42/2015
 Compton Effect
• Besides the photoelectric effect, a number of other experiments were
carried out in the early twentieth century which also supported the
photon theory.
• One of these was the Compton effect (1923) named after its discoverer,
A. H. Compton (1892–1962).
• Compton aimed short-wavelength light (actually X-rays) at various
materials, and detected light scattered at various angles.
• He found that the scattered light had a slightly longer wavelength than
did the incident light, and therefore a slightly lower frequency indicating
a loss of energy.
• He explained this result on the basis of the photon theory as incident
photons colliding with electrons of the material, Fig.
• Using Eq. for momentum of a photon, Compton applied the laws of
conservation of momentum and energy to the collision of Fig. and derived
the following equation for the wavelength of the scattered photons:

• Where is the mass of the electron. (The quantity which has the
dimensions of length, is called the Compton wavelength of the electron.)
• We see that the predicted wavelength of scattered photons depends on
the angle at which they are detected.
• Compton’s measurements of 1923 were consistent with this formula.
• The wave theory of light predicts no such shift:
• an incoming electromagnetic wave of frequency f should set electrons into
oscillation at frequency f; and such oscillating electrons would reemit EM
waves of this same frequency f, which would not change with angle .
• Hence the Compton effect adds to the firm experimental foundation for
the photon theory of light.
• Compton effect: A single photon of wavelength strikes an electron in some
material, knocking it out of its atom.
• The scattered photon has less energy (some energy is given to the electron)
and hence has a longer wavelength (shown exaggerated).

• Experiments found scattered X-rays of just the wavelengths predicted by

conservation of energy and momentum using the photon model.