A Set of Laboratory Experiments for the Proper Understanding of the Photoelectric Effect Within a Teaching/Learning Context

Abstract

It is established that physics and engineering students struggle to effectively learn the physical foundations underpinning the photoelectric effect when taught solely via a theoretical approach. In response to this, and contrary to the approaches based on computer tutorials, this paper introduces a set of laboratory experiments that analyze the above phenomenon from a practical perspective. The aim hereby is to visually demonstrate and clarify the main concepts of the photoelectric effect using real equipment. Specifically, the relationship between incident lighting (across different wavelengths and intensities) and the generated photocurrent is studied using a specially designed simple device. The experiments furthermore calculate the Planck constant, elucidate the linear relationship between photon energy and frequency, and prove that the stopping voltage is independent of the incident light intensity. Hence, the proposed experiments may foster a deeper understanding of the corpuscular nature of light among students.