The Shell Model And Photoelectron Spectroscopy and the Structure of Atoms Ch 7 part 1.5

A little history  Einstein earned the Noble Prize for his work on the Photoelectric effect.  The photoelectric effect is when electrons are emitted from a solid liquid or gas when they absorb energy in the form of light.  This has been determined experimentally by shining light on metal.

Photoelectric Effect By shining a light on metal, one may create a current

Photoelectric effect  Increasing the intensity of the light increased the number of photoelectrons, but not their maximum kinetic energy  Red light will not cause the ejection of electrons, no matter what the intensity!  A weak violet light will eject only a few electrons, but their maximum kinetic energies are greater than those for intense light of longer wavelengths!

E photon = h v

Photoelectron Spectroscopy  PES provides a useful means to extract information on atomic structure using spectroscopic data.  By looking at the data chart one may determine the structure of the atom.  How? The chart gives evidence for the shell model.

Photoelectron Spectroscopy (PES) DDDDo all electrons in a given shell have the same energy? TTTTo answer this a technique using radiation on a neutral atom in the gas phase called Photoelectron Spectroscopy is used. TTTThe technique shines radiation (UV or X- ray) on an atom to excite it to the point that it will eject an electron from its shell and form a cation.

Shell Model   In the shell model, we see the ionization energy is decreased the farther the electron is from the nucleus.  By the way of reasoning, it takes more energy to remove an electron from n=2 than n=3.

Photoelectron Spectroscopy (PES)  The energy of the photon used is higher than the ionization energy.  The excess energy is converted to the kinetic energy on the ejected electron.  The energy required to remove the electron is equal to the difference between the energy absorbed by the atom (hv) and the kinetic energy of the ejected electron  IE = hv - KE

Photoelectron Spectroscopy (PES)  This technique allows the researcher to remove one electron from any shell.  Therefore, One may remove electrons from the inner core without moving the outer electrons.

The apparatus

Reading a PES spectra  On the PES spectra, energy increases as one moves to the left. The height refers to the number of electrons.

Demostration  h/photoelectron.html h/photoelectron.html h/photoelectron.html