PHY101 Modern Physics Unit - I Dr. N. R.

Sathya Swaroop
2. Compton Effect
2.1 Introduction
Photons have zero rest mass. However, they have finite momentum. They transfer it to other particles too. This can be
seen in Compton Effect, which demonstrates that photons behave as particles.

The scattering of a photon by an electron is called Compton Effect. The scattered photon has larger wavelength
compared to the incident photon. The increase in wavelength is called as the Compton shift.

Compton used a carbon block to scatter monochromatic photons. The scattered photons were detected by a detector
and the experimental results were as follows. Notice that each plot is for a fixed angle between detector and the
incident radiation.







Fig. 1 Experimental results of Compton Effect

The Compton shift was found to increase with the angle . Wave theory cannot explain this experimental result, as we
would expect a single (incident) wavelength at the detector, as a result of absorption and re-emission of the photons by
carbon atoms, happening at incident wavelength and at resonance (due to atoms of carbon set into forced oscillations
by the photons).

Light, when considered as particles (photons) can explain this phenomenon. Qualitatively, the photons lose their energy
with carbon and hence their frequency and result in increased wavelength (since E=h for photons).

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PHY101 Modern Physics Unit - I Dr. N. R. Sathya Swaroop
2.2 Theory of Compton Effect
Compton considered a single photon-electron interaction. The electron in carbon was assumed to be unbound (free) and
at rest (momentum zero before collision). The initial and final frequencies of the photon are  and ’ while the rest mass
of the electron is m0. In the figure that follows representing the collision of photon and electron, all the quantities with
the symbol E represent energies and the symbol p indicates momenta. With both the symbols, the subscript ‘i’ and ‘f’
indicate respectively the initial and the final value of the quantity under consideration while the superscripts ‘p’ and ‘e’
indicate respectively the photon and the electron. Note that according to the theory of relativity, the energy of a particle
[like electron] is given as E  m02 c 4  p 2 c 2 . As a special case, since for photon m0=0, E=pc=h. Based on this, the
following figure indicates the initial and final energies and momenta of electron and photon.

Fig. 2 Conservation of energy and momentum in a photon-electron collision

Applying the conservation of energy,

 
h  m0 c 2  h   m02 c 4  p ef c 2
2

h  h   m c 
0
2 2
  2
 m02c 4  p ef c 2

h  h 2  m02c4  2m0c 2 (h  h )  m02c 4   p ef 2 c 2

h 2  h 2  2hh   2m0c 2 (h  h )   p ef 2 c 2 (1)

Applying conservation of momentum,

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PHY101 Modern Physics Unit - I Dr. N. R. Sathya Swaroop

Fig. 3 Vector diagram for conservation of momentum

p ip  p pf  p ef

p ef  p ip  p pf

Taking the dot product of the above vector equation with itself,

 p   p    p 
e 2
f i
p 2 p 2
f   
 2 pip p fp cos

 p  c  h   h 
e 2
f
2 2 2
 2h h  cos
(2)

Comparing equations (1) and (2),

 2hh   2m0 c 2 ( h  h )  2h h  cos 

m0c 2 (   )  h  1  cos  

Converting the frequencies into wavelengths using λ=c,

2
 c c  hc
m0 c 2     1  cos 
      

m0 c  h1  cos  

Here, Δλ=λ’-λ is the Compton shift.

Δ = (1 − cos )
(3)

h
This is the required expression for Compton shift. The term is called the Compton wavelength. Notice that Δλ
m0 c
depends only on , not on any other material parameters.

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PHY101 Modern Physics Unit - I Dr. N. R. Sathya Swaroop
2.3 Compton Effect (experimental)

Fig. 4 Experimental set up for the measurement of Compton shift as a function of angle of scattering

The experimental set up consists of a source of monochromatic x-ray beams made to incident on a target (carbon), after
going through an aperture. The detector consists of a single crystal Nickel. As the x-ray incident on the crystal is
diffracted only at Bragg’s angles, it has to be rotated together with a photomultiplier to obtain the final experimental
results as variations in x-ray intensity with the wavelength. Notice that the wavelength can be obtained by Bragg’s law.
The scattered x-rays are detected for a fixed angle of scattering. The results at various angles appear as in Fig. 1. The
Compton shift can be directly measured from the above experimental set up for various values of  and can be
compared with the Compton shift calculated [theoretical prediction] from equation 3. There is a very good agreement
between the two.

1. Notice that in the experimental results represented in Fig. 1, there is an additional peak at the original
wavelength, while we would expect only a peak at the scattered wavelength. The existence of this additional
peak can be explained as follows. There are some scattered radiations from bound electrons too. The recoil and
the Compton shift are very negligible in such cases. Since entire mass of atom is involved in the process, we can
see from equation 3 that when m0 is replaced by atomic mass (approximately), Δλ→0. Nevertheless, this
explains the presence of incident wavelength in the experimental curve (at all angles, except =0).
2h
2. The maximum shift is got at =180. max   4.8 pm . The fractional change in Δλ that can be detected
m0 c
max
is Δλ/λ. If we use visible light (400- 700 nm),  0.0015 % , which is extremely difficult to detect. For x-

max
rays (λ=0.1 nm),  5% , which can be easily detected. So, normally x-rays are used in Compton shift

calculations.
3. The difference in peak heights at λ and λ’ in the experimental result shows that the probability of scattering by
an unbound electron is more than the one by a bound electron.

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