Misleading points in the teaching of Millikan’s experiment on the photoelectric effect

Abstract

During his years, he has published many articles in leading journals, and now he teaches physics and calculus at Sapir Academic College and exam physics programs for high school students.

Should the concept of stopping potential be removed from teaching for A-level?

“…of the emitted electrons is both widespread, and intuitively attractive, it is wrong, as was first emphasised in this Journal half a century ago [3]. Other critical papers in various journals devoted to Physics education followed [4][5][6][7][8][9][10], but the error took a long time to be removed from advanced texts, and still occasionally crops up at University level [9], so it is unsurprising to find the same erroneous analysis in A-level texts. Nevertheless, errors need to be corrected.…”

“…6 An alternative diagram, which leads to the same result, plots the energy of these maximum .k.e. electrons as they travel between the electrodes at the single voltage Vs (see figure 2 in [8]). The diagrams appear to be quite similar, but figure 2 above shows a range of applied voltages; that in [8] illustrates the energy variation of electrons at one specific voltage, Vs. potential.…”

“…electrons as they travel between the electrodes at the single voltage Vs (see figure 2 in [8]). The diagrams appear to be quite similar, but figure 2 above shows a range of applied voltages; that in [8] illustrates the energy variation of electrons at one specific voltage, Vs. potential. Thus both electrodes are initially at the same potential, the common Fermi level E F .…”

Discussion for the enhanced understanding of the photoelectric effect

“…Many textbooks illustrate the experiments on the photoelectric effect inaccurately unlike the historical cases of physics [5]. The meaning of the stopping potential or the energy distribution according to quantum mechanics are rarely discussed in physics textbooks [6,7]. Guisasola et al pointed out that many physics textbooks focus on describing specific content domains, neglecting the interconnected descriptions between the different parts of physics from the example of electromagnetic descriptions [8].…”

Corrigendum: ‘Measurement of the ratio h / e with a photomultiplier tube and a set of LEDs’ (2017 Eur. J. Phys. 38 025208)

“…The mistake is widespread in the physics teaching literature, and a number of articles have discussed this point [2][3][4][5]. Another discussion [6] appeared at almost the same time as the original paper.…”