Chapter 1 Lecture (2) Dr.
Ayman rabie
Chapter 1 Light and Electromagnetic waves
Lecturer (2)
Photons
According to classical physics light must be a wave. But the results of the Photoelectric
effect requires light to be a particle, a photon. What then is light? Is it a wave or is it a
particle?
If light is a particle then it must have some of the characteristics of particles, that is, it
should possess mass, energy, and momentum. Let us first consider the mass of the
photon. The relativistic mass of a particle was given as
=
1 −
But the photon is a particle of light and must therefore move at the speed of light C.
Hence, its mass becomes
= =
√1 − 1 0
But division by zero is undefined. The only way out of this problem is to define the rest
mass of a photon as being zero, that is,
ℎ = 0
At first this may seem a contradiction, but since the photon always moves at the speed
C, it is never at rest, and therefore does not need a rest mass.
Mass of the photon can be defined from equation:
= → =
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Chapter 1 Lecture (2) Dr. Ayman rabie
ℎ
∵ = ℎ → =
Momentum of Photon
ℎ ℎ
= = = (5.9)
According to this quantum theory of light, light spreads out from a source in small
bundles of energy called quanta or photons. Although the photon is treated as a particle,
its properties of mass, energy, and momentum are described in terms of frequency or
wavelength, strictly a wave concept.
Thus, we say that light has a dual nature. It can act as a wave or it can act as a particle,
but never both at the same time. To answer the question posed at the beginning of this
section, is light a wave or a particle, the answer is that light is both a wave and a particle.
This dual nature of light is stated in the principle of complementarity: The wave theory
of light and the quantum theory of light complement each other. In a specific event, light
exhibits either a wave nature or a particle nature, but never both at the same time. When
the wavelength of an electromagnetic wave is long, its frequency and hence its photon
energy ( = ℎ) are small and we are usually concerned with the wave characteristics
of the electromagnetic wave. For example, radio and television waves have relatively
long wavelengths and they are usually treated as waves. When the wavelength of the
electromagnetic wave is small, its frequency and hence its photon energy are large. The
electromagnetic wave is then usually considered as a particle. For example, X rays have
very small wavelengths and are usually treated as particles. However, this does not mean
that X rays cannot also act as waves. In fact they do. When X rays are scattered from a
crystal, they behave like waves, exhibiting the usual diffraction patterns associated with
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Chapter 1 Lecture (2) Dr. Ayman rabie
waves. The important thing is that light can act either as a wave or a particle, but never
both at the same time.
Let us summarize the characteristics of the photon:
Rest mass mo = 0
Energy = ℎ
ℎ
=
Mass
ℎ
= =
Momentum
The Wave Properties of Particles
Students introduced to the dual nature of light often find the concept difficult to accept.
In the world around us, we are accustomed to regarding such things as baseballs solely
as particles and other things such as sound waves solely as forms of wave motion. Every
large-scale observation can be interpreted by considering either a wave explanation or a
particle explanation, but in the world of photons and electrons, such distinctions are not
as sharply drawn.
In his 1923 doctoral dissertation, Louis de Broglie postulated that because photons have
both wave and particle characteristics, perhaps all forms of matter have both properties.
This highly revolutionary idea had no experimental confirmation at the time. According
to de Broglie, electrons, just like light, have a dual particle–wave nature.
The momentum of a photon can be expressed as:
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Chapter 1 Lecture (2) Dr. Ayman rabie
h
p=
λ
This equation shows that the photon wavelength can be specified by its momentum:
λ = h#p. De Broglie suggested that material particles of momentum p have a
characteristic wavelength that is given by the same expression. Because the magnitude
of the momentum of a particle of mass m and speed u is p = mu, the de Broglie
wavelength of that particle
h h
λ= =
p mu
Furthermore, in analogy with photons, de Broglie postulated that particles obey the
Einstein relation E = hf, where E is the total energy of the particle. The frequency of a
particle is then
E
f =
h
Characteristics of wave
Unlike particles, which have well-defined positions and trajectories, waves are not
localized in space. Rather, waves fill regions of space, and their evolutions in time are
not described by simple trajectories. Nevertheless, some waves are more localized than
others, and so it is useful two broad classes. (1) A wave pulse is a relatively localized
disturbance. For example, when a stone is dropped into a pond, the resulting
ripples, which constitute a surface wave, extend over only a small portion of the
surface at any instant of time. (2) Periodic waves can extend over great distances.
In the example above, if the water surface is repeatedly disturbed at one point for a
long period of time, the surface ripples eventually will blanket a large area.
A simple and useful example of a periodic wave is a harmonic wave; a snapshot of such
a wave at one instant of time and a complementary picture showing the time dependence
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Chapter 1 Lecture (2) Dr. Ayman rabie
of the wave at one point in space are shown in the figure. The wavelength λ of the wave
is the physical separation between successive crests. The maximum displacement of
the wave, or amplitude, is denoted by A. The time between successive oscillations is
called the period T of the wave. The number of oscillations per second is the
wave frequency f,, which is the reciprocal of the period,1/
period,1/T.
Harmonic waves propagate with well
well-defined
defined velocities that are related to their
frequency
requency and wavelength. Fixing attention on a single point in space, the number of
wave crests that pass that point per second is the wave frequency f.. The distance traveled
past that point by any one crest in one second
second—the wave velocity v is equal to the
distance between crests λ multiplied by the frequency: v = λf.
The properties of harmonic waves are illustrated in the mathematical expression for the
displacement in both space and time. For a harmonic wave traveling in the x-direction,
the spatial and time dependence of the displacement y(x,t) is
20*
)((*, +,- . 201
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Chapter 1 Lecture (2) Dr. Ayman rabie
3
k , the number of radians per unit distance, sometimes termed the angular
4
wavenumber or circular wavenumber, but more often simply wavenumber.
)*, +,-5* 6
Consider a pulse traveling to the right on a long string as shown in Figure its represents
the shape and position of the pulse at time t = 0. At this time, the shape of the pulse,
whatever it may be, can be represented by some mathematical function that we will
write as y(x, 0) = f(x). This function describes the transverse position y of the element of
the string located at each value of x aat time t = 0. Because the speed of the pulse is ,
the pulse has traveled to the right a distance at the time t (Fig b). We assume the
shape of the pulse does not change with time. Therefore, at time t, the shape of the pulse
is the same as it was att time t = 0 as in Figure a.
Consequently, an element of the string at x at this time
has the same y position as an element located at
* had at time t = 0:
)*, )*
* , 0
In general, then, we can represent the transverse
position y for all positions and times, measured in a
stationary frame with the origin at O, as
)*, *
*
Similarly, if the pulse travels to the left, the transverse
positions of elements of the string are described by
* 7
)*, *
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Chapter 1 Lecture (2) Dr. Ayman rabie
The function y, sometimes called the wave function, depends on the two variables x and
t. For this reason, it is often written y(x, t), which is read “y as a function of x and t.”
Consider the sinusoidal wave in Active Figure, which shows the position of the wave at t
= 0. Because the wave is sinusoidal, we expect the wave function at this instant to be
expressed as
)*, 0) = + -8 9*
Where A is the amplitude and, a is a constant to be determined. At x = 0, we see that y
(0, 0) = A sin a (0) = 0, consistent with Active Figure a. The next value of x for which y
is zero is x = λ/2. Therefore,
) . , 01 = + -8 . 9 1 = 0
2 2
:;
For this equation to be true, we must have = 0, or 9 = 20/. Therefore, the
function describing the positions of the elements of the medium through which the
sinusoidal wave is traveling can be written
20
)(*, 0) = + -8 . *1
Where the constant A represents the wave amplitude and the constant λ is the
wavelength. Notice that the vertical position of an element of the medium is the same
Whenever x is increased by an integral multiple of λ. if the wave moves to the right with
a speed v, the wave function at some later time t is
20
)(*, ) = + -8 = (* − )>
)(*, ) = + -8(5* − 6 + ?)
20
5= @9A BCAD
@ = 20 9EBF9D DAGBA,)
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Chapter 1 Lecture (2) Dr. Ayman rabie
General wave equation
All wave functions yx, t) represent solutions of an equation called the linear wave
equation. This equation gives a complete description of the wave motion, and from it
one can derive an expression for the wave speed. Furthermore, the linear wave equation
is basic to many forms of wave motion. In this section, we derive this equation as
applied to waves on strings.
The wave equation is an important second-order linear partial differential equation for
the description of waves – as they occur in physics – such as sound waves, light waves
and water waves. It arises in fields like acoustics, electromagnetic, and fluid dynamics.
The wave equation in one space dimension can be written like this:
K) K)
=,
K K*
.
This equation is typically described as having only one space dimension "x", because the
only other independent variable is the time "t". Nevertheless, the dependent variable "y"
may represent a second space dimension, as in the case of a string that is located in the
x-y plane.
Phase velocity and group velocity
For a sinusoidal wave, or a waveform comprised of many sinusoidal components that all
propagate at the same velocity, the waveform will move at the phase velocity of the
sinusoidal components we’ve seen already that the phase velocity is
vp= ω/k
What happens if the different components of the wave have different phase velocities
(i.e. because of dispersion)?
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Chapter 1 Lecture (2) Dr. Ayman rabie
When the various frequency components of a waveform have different phase velocities,
the phase velocity of the waveform is an average of these velocities (the phase velocity
of the carrier wave), but the waveform itself moves at a different speed than the
underlying carrier wave called the group velocity.
The phase velocity of a wave is
6
5
And comes from the change in the position of the wavefronts as a function of time the
waveform moves at a rate that depends on the relative position of the component
wavefronts as a function of time. This is the group velocity and is
M6
L
M5
This can be found if you have
, 5 M
6 5 5 → L .1 1
5 M5
Fermat’s Principle and the Laws of Reflection and Refraction
Fermat’s principle states that “light travels between two points along the path that
requires the least time, as compared to other nearby paths.” From Fermat’s principle,
one can derive (a) the law of reflection [the angle of incidence is equal to the angle of
reflection] and (b) the law of refraction [Snell’s law].
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