Blackbody radiation - Black is white when it is hot enough!

References:
1. A. Beiser (2015, Ed. 7), Concepts of Modern Physics, McGraw Hill (New Delhi)
2. Optics: Eugene Hecht and A. R. Ganesan (2002, Ed. 4), Addison Wesley Longman

• Blackbody Radiation Oven

• Every material object emits radiation, referred to as thermal radiation, which is essentially
electromagnetic in nature!
• Heat up a metal: Its color changes from red to yellow to white as it gets hotter and hotter.
• Even at room temperature, a metal emits radiation, which we cannot see. This falls in the
infrared region. One can use an infrared (thermal) imager to see this radiation.
• The ability of a body to emit radiation is related to its ability to absorb radiation as well. At
thermal equilibrium, the body must absorb and emit an equal amount of radiation.
• Gustav Kirchhoff is regarded as the father of the quantum revolution. He defined what is referred
to as a blackbody.
• He argued that (1859) the spectral flux density or spectral irradiance (energy per unit area per
unit time per unit wavelength at a given wavelength) denoted as within an isolated
chamber at thermal equilibrium at a temperature is related to the absorption coefficient ( )
and emission coefficient ( ) through the relation: (Kirchhoff's radiation law), where the
LHS represents the energy emitted by the object whereas the RHS represents the energy
absorbed by the object.
 absorbed by the object.
• For a blackbody, (which is the fraction of the radiant energy absorbed by the material per
unit area in that unit wavelength range and is unitless) and hence .
• Kirchhoff assumed that the distribution is a universal function (independent of the material,
color, size, shape, etc.) of and dependent only on , the temperature of the object.
• Kirchhoff could not propose a functional form for this quantity, but he urged the experimentalists
to measure it.
• Experimentally, a close-to-ideal blackbody may be constructed as a hollow cavity with a tiny
hole for the radiation to enter it.
• One can sample the blackbody radiation by investigating what comes out of the hole in the
cavity.
• A hotter blackbody radiates more energy than a colder one, whereas the peak of the blackbody
radiation spectrum shifts toward the shorter wavelength when the temperature increases.
Source: Hyperphysics
• To understand the nature of the measured blackbody radiation spectrum, Lord Rayleigh and
James Jeans tried to find the number of modes that can be contained within a cavity per unit
volume.
• The number density of cavity modes with frequencies and is given by (verify)

(1)

• This formula is independent of the shape of the cavity or the material with which it is made of.
• The average energy per standing wave is , where is contributed by each degree of
freedom of a harmonic oscillator (potential energy part and kinetic energy part).
• Therefore the spectral energy density of the standing waves in the cavity is given by the
Rayleigh-Jeans formula:

(2a)

• This is the spectral distribution predicted by the classical physics.

• In terms of wavelength, the Rayleigh-Jeans formula reads

(2b)

• As , the spectral energy density blows up and this is referred to as the ultraviolet
catastrophe.
• Further, according to this formula, the total energy density integrated over all the wavelengths at
any temperature is infinite - which is clearly impossible.
• The solution to the problem was provided by Max Planck by a "lucky guesswork" [1900]! He
came up with a formula for the spectral energy density of the blackbody radiation by fitting the
data available from the experiments:
 data available from the experiments:
, (3a)

where . This equation is referred to as Planck radiation formula. The quantity

appearing in the expression is called Planck's constant: Js.
• Planck radiation formula in wavelength is written as
. (3b)

• For small , one may write . Substituting this in eq. 3b yeilds the Rayleigh-
Jeans formula.
• Thus, as , the formula reduces to Rayleigh-Jeans formula, whereas, at , ,
eliminating the ultraviolet catastrophe.
• In particular, the Planck's radiation formula fits perfectly with the measured blackbody radiation
spectrum.
• Wien's displacement law [Wilhelm Wien, 1893] yields the functional dependence of the peak of
the blackbody radiation curve as a function of temperature: . One can
derive it from the Planck radiation law.
• Planck realized that his formula is valid only under the assumption that the oscillators of the
cavity walls should have discrete distribution of possible energies: , where
• Each discrete unit of energy is called a quantum of energy (quantum is a Greek word referring to
"how much").
• An oscillator absorbs a quantum of energy to make a transition from a low energy state to a
high energy state and it emits a quantum of energy when it gets de-excited.
• With oscillator energies limited to , the actual average energy per standing wave is not
(for a continuous distribution energies), but

(4)

• If we integrate eq. (3a) over the entire range of frequencies, we get the total energy density:

• Therefore, one may expect that the total power radiated by an object per unit area is also
proportional to .
• In 1879, Josef Stefan had discovered this law experimentally. In 1884, his supervisor Ludwig
Boltzmann derived this law from thermodynamic considerations.
• Stefan-Boltzmann law reads: , where is the emissivity of the surface of the object
under consideration. for a perfect blackbody.
• The Stefan's constant: .
• If an object with surface area having a temperature , emissivity , and absorptivity is
placed in an environment at temperature having an emissivity , the object will radiate at a
 placed in an environment at temperature having an emissivity , the object will radiate at a
rate and will absorb at a rate .
• At thermal equilibrium, , for which , which should be true at any temperature.
• Thus, the net rate at which the energy is radiated (absorbed) by the object for ( ) is
.
• All bodies at non-zero temperature radiate!
• Below table gives total emissivity of various materials at 300 K [Source: Hecht, Optics].