Wave properties of particles

Question 1

How is the wave property and the corpuscular property of light shown?

Answer 1

~Elementary particles possess (as do their systems: atoms, molecules) both corpuscular and wave properties (corpuscular-wave dualism)
wave property ← diffraction and interference experiments show that light is represented by waves
corpuscular property ← photoelectric effect demonstrates that light is a flux of energy in the form of photons.

Question 2

Describe the wave theory of matter and its accompanying equation.

Answer 2

~Wave theory of matter:
Motion of a particle with mass m, momentum p, and energy E is related to the wavelength of de Broglie’s wave by
λ = h/p
And to the frequency by f = E/h

~The equation for wavelength suggests that wavelengths of elementary particles are very short (shorter than visible light). This is why the resolving power of an electron microscope is better than that of an optical microscope.

Question 3

What is the equation to describe the energy of a photon?

Answer 3

*The energy E of photon (J) is related to the frequency f of the wave and to its wavelength lamda (λ) by
E=hf = hc/ λ
where h = 6.63 x 10-34 J.s = 4.13x10-15 eV = Planks constant
c=velocity of light

Question 4

Describe the corpuscular-wave dualism consequence.

Answer 4

~The corpuscular-wave dualism has its consequences:
The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle: it is impossible to determine with perfect accuracy the position and momentum of a particle simultaneously. If the position vector r is being measured, its momentum will change and vice versa.