Assignment on:

Modern Physics
Assigned by:
Dr. M Ahsan Mazhar
Assigned Topic:
Blackbody Radiation
Submitted by:
M. Salman, Roll No. 49.

Department of Physics, Bahadin Zakariya University, Multan.

Before 1900, it was thought that classical mechanics is enough to define all the physical aspects
It is that quantum physics started not with a failure of Maxwells or Newtons laws applied to the atom, but with a
problem of classical statistical mechanics that of calculating the intensity of radiation at a given wavelength from a heated
cavity.
The desperate solution to this radiation problem was found by a thoroughly classical thermodynamicist, Max Planck, in
1900.
According to Maxwell theory, an alternating current would set up fluctuating electric and magnetic fields in the region
surrounding the original disturbance. Moreover, these waves were predicted to have a frequency equal to the frequency of
the current oscillations, and most important is that Maxwells theory predicted that the radiated waves would behave in
every way like light: electromagnetic waves would be reflected by metal mirrors, would be refracted by dielectrics like
glass, would exhibit polarization and interference, and would travel outward from the wire through a vacuum with a speed
of = 3 108 /.
Maxwell though that electromagnetic waves were being produced by oscillation of extremely high frequency radiator in the
matter, he called these radiator, the oscillator.
Maxwell was of thought but he could not prove all these waves experimentally.
In 1880s, a German physicist, Heinrich Hertz showed that Maxwells theory was correct and that an oscillating electric
current does indeed radiate electromagnetic waves that possess every characteristic of light except the same wavelength as
light Using a simple spark gap oscillator consisting of two short stubs terminated in small metal spheres separated by an air
gap of about half an inch, he applied pulses of high voltage, which caused a spark to jump the gap and produce a high
frequency electric oscillations or electromagnetic oscillations
After the success of Maxwells theory of light emission or electromagnetic waves, the attempts were made to apply it to
problem about radiation so called blackbody problem. The problem is to predict the radiation intensity at a given
wavelength emitted by a hot glowing solid at a specific temperature.
BLACKBODY RADIATION
A perfect blackbody is one that absorbs all incoming light and does not reflect any. At room temperature, such an object
would appear to be perfectly black (hence called blackbody). However, if heated to a high temperature, a blackbody will
begin to glow.
There is no perfect black body in the world. It allows all that allows all the incident radiation and internally absorbs all of
it.
It has zero reflection.
It has zero transmittance.
It is true for all the wavelengths incident on it.
It is valid for all the incident direction.
Examples
Lamp Black, Platinum Black, Some special paint.
Why this name black body?
Generally this body is very poor reflector that why they appear to be black, a blackbody absorbs all the radiation of visible
region and hence appears black.
Explanation.
In 1792, Thomas Wedgwood, observed that all the objects in his ovens, regardless
of their chemical nature, size, or shape, became red at the same temperature.
In 1859, Gustav Kirchhoff proved a theorem, he showed by arguments based on thermodynamics
That for anybody in thermal equilibrium with radiation the emitted
Power is proportional to the power absorbed, mathematically,

= (, ) 1)
where is the power emitted per unit area per unit frequency by a particular heated object, is the absorption power
and J( f, T) is a universal function (the same for all bodies) that depends only on f, the light frequency, and T, the absolute
temperature of the body. A blackbody is an object that absorbs all the electromagnetic radiation falling on it and
consequently appears black. It has for all frequencies and so Kirchhoffs theorem for a blackbody becomes
= (, ) 2)
eq. 2 shows that the power emitted per unit area per unit frequency by a blackbody depends only on temperature and
light frequency and not on the physical and chemical shape of the blackbody.
Because absorption and emission are connected by Kirchhoffs theorem, we see that a blackbody or perfect absorber is
also an ideal radiator.
Construction of Blackbody
In practice/laboratory, a small opening in any heated cavity, such as a port in an oven, behaves like a blackbody because
such an opening traps all incident radiation. If the direction of the radiation is reversed in, the light emitted by a small
opening is in thermal equilibrium with the walls, because it has been absorbed and re-emitted many times as shown in
fig-1

It is shown in the fig-1 that opening to the cavity inside a body is a good approximation of a blackbody. Light entering the
small opening strikes the far wall, where some of it is absorbed but some is reflected at a random angle. The light
continues to be reflected, and at each reflection a portion of the light is absorbed by the cavity walls. After many
reflections essentially all of the incident energy is absorbed.

The next important development in the quest to understand the universal character of the radiation emitted by glowing
solids came from the Austrian physicist Josef Stefan in 1879. He found experimentally that the total power per unit area
emitted at all frequencies by a hot solid, was proportional to the fourth power of its absolute temperature.

Therefore, = 0 = 4
where e total is the power per unit area emitted at the surface of the blackbody at all frequencies, is the power per
unit area per unit frequency emitted by the blackbody, T is the absolute temperature of the body, and _ is the

StefanBoltzmann constant, given by 5.67 108 . 2 4

Intensity per unit
wavelength
0 1 2 3 4
(m) fig-2
As can be seen in fig-2, the wavelength marking the maximum power emission of a blackbody, max, shifts toward shorter
wavelengths as the blackbody gets hotter. This agrees with general observation that objects progress from dull red to
orange to white in color as the temperature was raised. This simple effect of 1 was not definitely established,
however, until about 20 years, In 1893, Wilhelm Wien proposed a general form for the blackbody distribution law J( f, T )
that gave the correct experimental behavior of with temperature. This law is called Wiens displacement law may be
written
= 2.898 103 . 3)
where max is the wavelength in meters corresponding to the blackbodys maximum intensity and T
is the absolute temperature of the surface of the object emitting the radiation.
So far, we have discussed the power radiated per unit area per unit frequency by the blackbody, J( f, T ) has
been discussed. However, it is more convenient to consider the spectral energy density, or energy per unit
volume per unit frequency of the radiation within the blackbody cavity, u( f, T ).
For light in equilibrium with the walls, the power emitted per square centimeter of opening is simply
proportional to the energy density of the light in the cavity.
Because the cavity radiation is isotropic and unpolarized, one can average over direction to show that the
constant of proportionality between J( f, T ) and u( f, T ) is c/4, where c is the speed of light. Therefore,
J( f, T ) = u( f, T )c/4
It was confirmed by Wien in 1893 that the universal function (, )

( , ) = 3 3)
where A and are constants. This result was known as Wiens exponential law; it resembles and was loosely
based on Maxwells velocity distribution for gas molecules.
Within one year German spectroscopist Friedrich Paschen had confirmed Wiens guess by working in the
infrared range of 1 to 4 m and at temperatures of 400 to 1600 4 .

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
(m)
Fig-3 Discrepancy between Wiens law and experimental data for a blackbody at 1500 K.

As can be seen in fir 3, Paschen made most of his measurements in correct way of a body heated to 1500 K and had
found good agreement with Wiens exponential law. In 1900, however, Lummer and Pringsheim extended the
measurements to 18 m, and Rubens and Kurlbaum went even farther to 60 m. Both teams concluded that Wiens
law failed, as can be seen from fig-3, this was known as ultraviolet catastrophe.
200
 100

-100

Fig-4 Comparison of theoretical and experimental blackbody emission

curves at 51.2 m and over the temperature range of 188 to 1500C.

Experiments involved the measurement of blackbody radiation intensity at a fixed wavelength and
variable temperature. The result is fig-4 are measured at = 51.2 m and over the temperature range
of 200 to +1500C are shown, from the paper by Rubens and Kurlbaum.
In October of 1900, Max Planck discovered the famous blackbody formula, which truly proved helpful in
the quantum theory. In one day he had heard from Rubens that his latest measurements showed that u(
f, T ), the spectral energy density, was proportional to T for long wavelengths or low frequency. Planck knew
that Wiens law agreed well with the data at high frequency. Interpolating between the two limiting forms
(Wiens exponential law and an energy density proportional to temperature), he found a general formula,
which he sent to Rubens, this formula was:
8 3 1
(, ) = ( ) 4)
3

1
where h is Plancks constant = 6.626 1034 J s, and kB is Boltzmanns constant = 1.380 1023 J/K. We can
see that Equation 4 has the correct limiting behavior at high and low frequencies with the help of a few
approximations. At high frequencies, where hf/k BT >> 1,

1

=

1
so that
8 3 1 8 3 /
(, ) = ( )=
3 3
1

and we recover Wiens exponential law, that is equation 3. At low frequencies, where 1,

1 1
( )= =

1 1+ +1

and
8 3 1 8 3
(, ) = (
)=
3 3
1
This result shows that spectral energy density is proportional to T in the lower frequency.

The Quantum of Energy

Planck thought that blackbody radiation was produced by vibrating submicroscopic electric charges, which he
called resonators. He assumed that the walls of a glowing cavity were composed of literally billions of these
resonators, all vibrating at different frequencies. Hence, according to Maxwell, each oscillator should emit
radiation with a frequency corresponding to its vibration frequency. Also according to Maxwell theory, an
oscillator of frequency f could have any value of energy and could change its amplitude
continuously as it radiated any fraction of its energy. On basis of experiment, Planck had to assume
that the total energy of a resonator with mechanical frequency f could only be an integral multiple of

= , = , , , ,
where h is a fundamental constant of quantum physics, h = 6.626 1034 J s,
he concluded that emission of radiation of frequency f occurred when a resonator dropped to the next lowest energy state.
Thus the resonator can change its energy only by the difference E according to
=
That is, it cannot lose just any amount of its total energy, but only a finite amount, hf, called quantum of energy
Planck explained the continuous spectrum of the blackbody by assuming that the heated walls contained resonators
vibrating at many different frequencies, each emitting light at the same frequency
as its vibration frequency. By considering the conditions leading to equilibrium between the wall resonators and the
radiation in the blackbody cavity, he was able to show that the spectral energy density u( f, T) could be expressed as the
product of the number of oscillators having frequency between f and f +df, denoted by N( f ) df, and the average energy
emitted per oscillator . Thus the result is
( , ) = ( ) 6)
Planck showed that the number of oscillators with frequency between and + was proportional to 2
82
= 3 ------7)
Substituting Equation 7 into Equation 6, gives
8 2
(, ) = .
3
This result shows that the spectral energy density is proportional to the product of the frequency squared and the average
oscillator energy. Also, u( f, T) approaches zero at high frequencies , must tend to zero at high frequencies faster than 1/
 2 .The fact that the mean oscillator energy must become extremely small when the frequency becomes high. Now we
discuss and see that this failure become small at high frequencies in the classical RayleighJeans theory that led to the
ultraviolet catastrophe the prediction of an infinite spectral energy density at high frequencies in the ultraviolet region
THE RAYLEIGH JEANS LAW AND PLANCKS LAW
Both Plancks law and the RayleighJeans law may be derived using the idea that the blackbody radiation energy per unit
volume with frequency between f and f + df can be expressed as the product of the number of oscillators per unit volume in
this frequency range and the average energy per oscillator:
(, ) = ()
Rayleigh and Jeans reasoned that the standing electromagnetic waves in the cavity could be considered to have a
temperature T, because they constantly exchanged energy with the walls, hence the radiation is also quantized. Using the
same general idea as Planck, they expressed the energy density as a product
of the number of standing waves (oscillators) and the average energy per oscillator. They found the average oscillator
energy to be independent of frequency and equal to from the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution law
According to this distribution law, the probability P of finding an individual system such as a molecule or an atomic
oscillator with energy E above some minimum energy, 0 , in a large group of systems at temperature T is:
() = ( )/

where is the probability that a system has the minimum energy. In the classical case considered by Rayleigh, an
oscillator could have any energy E in a continuous range from 0 to .


0
= =

0

k1
k2

Figure 6 A one-dimensional harmonic oscillator is equivalent to a plane polarized electromagnetic standing

wave.
So we have
8 2
() = 3

8
() = 4

The spectral energy density is simply the density of modes multiplied by T, or

8 2
(, ) =
3

 8
(, ) =
8)
4
The above equation is known as Rayleigh Jeans law, it does not agree with the experimental results in the short
wavelength region. Equation shows that 0 , predicting unlimited energy emission in the ultraviolet region, which was
called the ultraviolet catastrophe. It allow us to say that classical theory fails to explain blackbody radiation.

Spectral energy density

arbitrary units
in

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Wavelength (m)

Figure -8 The failure of the classical Rayleigh Jeans law (Equation 3.18) to fit the observed spectrum of a blackbody
heated to 1000 K.

Plancks Law
Planck concentrated on the energy states of resonators in the cavity walls and used the condition that the
resonators and cavity radiation were in equilibrium to determine the spectral quality of the radiation. By
thermodynamic reasoning, he arrived at the expression for N( f ) . However, Planck arrived at a different
form for E by allowing only discrete values of energy for his resonators. He found, using the Maxwell-
Boltzmann distribution law

=
1


82
Multiplying E by N( f ) gives the Planck distribution formula () = 3
8 2
(, ) = ( 1)
3

or in terms of wavelength
1
(, ) = 8
. .1.10
5 ( 1)

Equation shows that the ultraviolet region is avoided because the E term dominates the f 2 term at high
frequencies. One can qualitatively understand why E tends to zero at high frequencies by noting that the
first allowed oscillator level (hf ) is so large for large f compared to the average thermal energy available
(kBT ) that Boltzmanns law predicts almost zero probability that the first excited state is occupied.
 In summary, Planck arrived at his blackbody formula by
making two startling assumptions: (1) the energy of a charged
oscillator of frequency f is limited to
discrete values nhf and (2) during emission or absorption of light, the change in energy of an oscillator is hf . But
Planck was every bit the unwilling revolutionary. From most of Plancks early correspondence one gets the
impression that his concept of energy quantization was really a desperate calculation device, and moreover a device that
applied only in the case of blackbody radiation. It remained for the great Albert Einstein, the popular icon of physics in the
20th century, to elevate quantization to the level of a universal phenomenon by showing that light itself was quantized