In the photoelectric effect, what is the effect of increasing the frequency of incident light beyond the threshold frequency?
Practice Questions
1 question
Q1
In the photoelectric effect, what is the effect of increasing the frequency of incident light beyond the threshold frequency?
No effect on the emitted electrons
Increases the number of emitted electrons
Increases the kinetic energy of emitted electrons
Decreases the work function
Increasing the frequency beyond the threshold increases the kinetic energy of the emitted electrons, as per the equation KE = hf - φ.
Questions & Step-by-step Solutions
1 item
Q
Q: In the photoelectric effect, what is the effect of increasing the frequency of incident light beyond the threshold frequency?
Solution: Increasing the frequency beyond the threshold increases the kinetic energy of the emitted electrons, as per the equation KE = hf - φ.
Steps: 6
Step 1: Understand the photoelectric effect. This is when light hits a material and causes it to emit electrons.
Step 2: Know what the threshold frequency is. This is the minimum frequency of light needed to release electrons from the material.
Step 3: Realize that if the frequency of the light is increased beyond this threshold frequency, electrons will still be emitted.
Step 4: Learn about the equation KE = hf - φ. Here, KE is the kinetic energy of the emitted electrons, h is Planck's constant, f is the frequency of the light, and φ (phi) is the work function (the energy needed to release an electron).
Step 5: Notice that as you increase the frequency (f) of the light, the kinetic energy (KE) of the emitted electrons also increases because you are subtracting a constant (φ) from a larger number (hf).
Step 6: Conclude that increasing the frequency of the incident light beyond the threshold frequency results in higher kinetic energy for the emitted electrons.