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Recognition and Verification of Photoelectric Effect Mechanism

xiaotao pengxiaotao

Published Feb 17, 2026• 0 citations
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Abstract

Abstract Photoelectric effect has been recognized as the direct evidence of light quantum and has been accepted and recognized by mainstream scholars. However, after careful study, I found that there are three insurmountable obstacles to explain the photoelectric effect by light quantum: the red limit is only related to the material properties and has nothing to do with the intensity of illumination, the angle between the direction of photoelectron movement and the direction of light illumination can be greater than 90 degrees, and the number of photoelectrons does not increase but decreases with the increase of the frequency of illumination when the frequency of illumination is high to a certain extent. Only when the photoelectric effect is explained in terms of the synchrotron effect can these three obstacles be avoided and all the problems related to the photoelectric effect be satisfactorily explained. At the same time, the experimental scheme of verifying the photoelectric effect as the synchronous acceleration of electromagnetic field is put forward.

DOI
10.21203/rs.3.rs-8876714/v1

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Abstract Photoelectric effect has been recognized as the direct evidence of light quantum and has been accepted and recognized by mainstream scholars. However, after careful study, I found that there are three insurmountable obstacles to explain the photoelectric effect by light quantum: the red limit is only related to the material properties and has nothing to do with the intensity of illumination, the angle between the direction of photoelectron movement and the direction of light illumination can be greater than 90 degrees, and the number of photoelectrons does not increase but decreases with the increase of the frequency of illumination when the frequency of illumination is high to a certain extent. Only when the photoelectric effect is explained in terms of the synchrotron effect can these three obstacles be avoided and all the problems related to the photoelectric effect be satisfactorily explained. At the same time, the experimental scheme of verifying the photoelectric effect as the synchronous acceleration of electromagnetic field is put forward.
A relation is derived between the probability distribution of the integrated intensity of light incident on a photoelectric detector and that of the emission of n photoelectrons in a time interval (t, t + T) from the properties of a quantized electromagnetic field. Both the direct and the inverse relations are derived, thereby enabling the statistical properties of light to be determined from photoelectric measurements. An explicit expression is given for the coefficients for calculating the moments ( W k) by means of the moments (n J) (] = 1, 2 ..... k). The correctness of the operations in which generalized functions occur is confirmed by some direct calculations. The significance of photoelectric detectors has been increasing of late. Since their response is proportional to the intensity of incident light (to the square of the amplitude of light) (more exactly, to the local mean time value of the intensity), one speaks of quadratic detectors. These detectors are of basic importance in the theory of the coherence of the electromagnetic field, since if we place N such detectors into N different points in space and if we lead the outputs of these detectors to the correlator we can measure the correlation (coherence) effects of the 2N-th order in the given field [1]. Such correlation measurements provide information on the energy distribution in the radiation spectrum [2], the angular dimensions of stars [3], and the state of polarization [4] and also enable the phase of physically important functions (e.g. the scattering amplitudes) [5] to be determined. Although in such experiments the properties of photoelectrons are studied rather than of photons, they reflect the basic properties of photons. Let the probability distribution Of the emission of n photoelectrons in a time interval (t, t + T) be p(n, T, t) - p(n) and let the probability distribution of the quantity W(T, t) = W = J'tt+r I(t') dr', where I(t) is the intensity of linearly polarized light incident on the photodetector (for simplicity we assume that the sensitivity of the photocathode is a = 1), be P(W). The quantity W can be regarded as a classical characteristic of the field, the quantity n represents the quantum characteristic of the field. Then, on the basis of such a semi-classical description, in which the field is described classically, but its interaction is described quantum-wise, one can derive the following relation [6]
The idea of the photon has stirred the imaginations of physicists ever since 1905 when Einstein originally proposed the use of light quanta to explain the photoelectric effect. This concept is formalized in the quantum theory of radiation, which has had unfailing success in explaining the interaction of electromagnetic radiation with matter, seemingly limited only by the ability of physicists to perform the indicated calculations. Nevertheless, it has its conceptual problems—various infinities and frequent misinterpretations. Consequently an increasing number of workers are asking, “to what extent is the quantized field really necessary and useful?” In fact the experimental results of the photoelectric effect were explained by G. Wentzel in 1927 without the quantum theory of radiation. Similarly most electro-optic phenomena such as stimulated emission, reaction of the emitted field on the emitting atom, resonance fluorescence, and so on, do not require the quantization of the field for their explanation. As we will see, these processes can all be quantitatively explained and physically understood in terms of the semiclassical theory of the matter–field interaction in which the electric field is treated classically while the atoms obey the laws of quantum mechanics. The quantized field is fundamentally required for accurate descriptions of certain processes involving fluctuations in the electromagnetic field: for example, spontaneous emission, the Lamb shift, the anomalous magnetic moment of the electron, and certain aspects of blackbody radiation. (The Compton effect also fits here, but see later under references 8b and c.) Here we will outline how the photon concept originated and developed, where it is not required and is often misused, and finally where it plays an essential role in the understanding of physical phenomena. In our discussion we will attempt to give a logically consistent definition of the word “photon”—a statement far more necessary than one might think, for so many contradictory uses exist of this elusive beast. In particular consider the original coining of the word by G. N. Lewis: “[because it appears to spend] only a minute fraction of its existence as a carrier of radiant energy, while the rest of the time it remains an important structural element within the atom…, I therefore take the liberty of proposing for this hypothetical new atom which is not light but plays an essential part in every process of radiation, the name photon!” (our exclamation point). Clearly the present usage of the word is very different.
Quantum theory was not originally developed for the sake of \ninterpreting photoelectric phenomena. It was solely a theory \nas to the mechanism of absorption and emission of electromagnetic \nwaves by resonators of atomic or subatomic dimensions. It had nothing \nwhatever to say about the energy of an escaping electron or about the \nconditions under which such an electron could make its escape, and up \nto this day the form of the theory developed by its author has not been \nable to account satisfactorily for the photoelectric facts presented herewith. \nWe are confronted, however, by the astonishing situation that \nthese facts were correctly and exactly predicted nine years ago by a form \nof quantum theory which has now been pretty generally abandoned.
A hundred years ago, Planck and Einstein and others created quantum theories or quantum mechanics while they explained the photoelectric effect. Planck and Einstein empirically obtained a statistical relationship between the energy of light quantum and the frequency of light but have not studied the physical process and essence of the photoelectric effect, so some photoelectric phenomena are difficult to be explained by existing quantum mechanics currently. In this paper, a dynamical process of orthogonal interaction between a photon and an electron to form a new state of matter in photoelectric effect experiments is studied so finding that the Planck constant is a product value of the mass, length, and velocity of a high-energy particle. The dynamics of the orthogonal collision of matter (particles) can not only give the physical process and essence of the photoelectric effect, but also have great significance for the further development of quantum mechanics. It can physically explain phenomena such as wave-particle duality and quantum entanglement in the motion of high-energy particles. Its prospects can be widely used in cosmic physics, macro physics, and micro physics.