photon-atom collision (to天同)

Atheist

2012-03-01 4:54 am

My book and an MC question in a past paper have mentioned that when a photon, which possesses as the same energy as the energy difference between two energy level in an atom, collides with that atom, it is called 'inelastic collision'. Is it really correct to say that? Or it must be wrong?

回答 (1)

天同

2012-03-01 6:53 am

✔ 最佳答案

If the photon is completely aborbed by the atom, the process is more commonly called "excitation".

The term "inelastic collision" is usually applied to the process of Comption Scattering. If a high energy photon (in the x- or gamma ray range) collides with an atom, it may knock off an orbital electron and the photon would have its energy decreased. Under that situation, kinetic energy of the atom after collision plus the energy of the scattered photon is less than the original energy of the incident photon. The collision process is thus inelastic.

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