Photoelectric effect and photocurrent drop

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Homework Help Overview

The discussion revolves around the behavior of photocurrent in relation to the potential applied across anode and cathode in the context of the photoelectric effect. The original poster questions why the photocurrent does not drop to zero when the potential equals the kinetic energy of the emitted electrons.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory, Assumption checking

Approaches and Questions Raised

  • Participants explore the relationship between the applied voltage and the resulting photocurrent, questioning the conditions under which the current might drop to zero. There are inquiries about the polarity of the anode and the potential values used, as well as considerations regarding the wavelengths of light employed in the experiment.

Discussion Status

The discussion is ongoing, with participants offering insights and raising questions about the experimental setup and the behavior of the photocurrent. Some suggest that further exploration of the voltage range may be necessary to understand the observed results, while others express uncertainty about the expected outcomes.

Contextual Notes

There is mention of the original poster's experimental observations, including the use of various wavelengths of light and the expectation of a non-linear relationship between photocurrent and potential. The potential values applied and the nature of the resulting graphs are also under consideration.

hayyan1
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Homework Statement



Does the photocurrent drop to zero when a potential across it is equal to the kinetic energy of electrons?, because i found this not to be the case, the photocurrent reached a steady value that didnt decrease further, as i increased the potential across the anode and cathode. I don't understand why this happened?
 
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Was the anode at + or - relative to the cathode?
 
anode voltage was increased negatively so electron should be repelled from anode in theory, but for some reason i still was obtaining positive photocurrent, maybe i should have taken much larger negative values for potential, so current would eventually become zero?, however do you think i can extrapolate (with a curve of best fit) to zero current, because my graphs are curving towards zero photocurrent.
 
It depends. What wavelength(s) was/were used to generate the photocurrent? How high a voltage did you get to?

Extrapolating reasonably depends on whether graphing the data generates a straight line. Does it?
 
I used yellow, turquoise, green, blue, violet. it isn't ment to generate a straight line, for each frequency, the photocurrent (yaxis) is kind of meant to drop like a 1/x graph when plotted against the potential across the xaxis
 
That's weird. I would expect current to be zero if you go high enough in voltage, but I haven't done the experiment.

Not sure what's going on.
 

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