The Bose-Einstein distribution of the previous section can also be used for understanding the emission of light and other electromagnetic radiation. If you turn on an electric stove, the stove plate heats up until it becomes red hot. The red glow that you see consists of photons with energies in the visible red range. When the stove plate was cold, it also emitted photons, but those were of too low energy to be seen by our unaided eyes.
The radiation system that is easiest to analyze is the inside of an empty box. Empty should here be read as devoid of matter. For if the temperature inside the box is above absolute zero, then the inside of the box will still be filled with the electromagnetic radiation that the atoms in the box surfaces emit. This radiation is representative of the radiation that truly black surfaces emit. Therefore, the radiation inside the box is called “blackbody radiation.”
Before the advent of quantum mechanics, Rayleigh and Jeans had
computed using classical physics that the energy of the radiation in
the box would vary with electromagnetic frequency
It was this very problem that led to the beginning of quantum
mechanics. To fix the problem, in 1900 Planck made the unprecedented
assumption that energy would not come in arbitrary amounts, but only
in discrete chunks of size
Photons are bosons, relativistic ones, to be sure, but still bosons.
Therefore the Bose-Einstein distribution should describe their
statistics. More specifically, the average number of photons in each
single-particle state should be
To get the energy of the photons in a small frequency range
That gives the radiation energy per unit volume of the box and per
unit energy range as
For low frequencies, the final ratio is about
To rewrite the blackbody spectrum in terms of the frequency
For engineering purposes, what is often the most important is the amount of radiation emitted by a surface into its surroundings. Now it so happens that if you drill a little hole in the box, you get a perfect model for a truly black surface. An ideal black surface is defined as a surface that absorbs, rather than reflects, all radiation that hits it. If the hole in the box is small enough, any radiation that hits the hole enters the box and is never seen again. In that sense the hole is perfectly black.
And note that a black surface does not have to look black. If the black plate of your electric stove is hot enough, it will glow red. Similarly, if you would heat the inside of the box to the same temperature, the radiation inside the box would make the hole shine just as red. If you would heat the box to 6 000 K, about as hot as the surface of the sun, the hole would radiate sunlight.
The amount of radiation that is emitted by the hole can be found by
simply multiplying Planck’s spectrum by one quarter of the speed
of light
If you see the hole under an angle, it will look just as bright per
unit area as when you see it straight on, but it will seem smaller.
So your eyes will receive less radiation. More generally, if
Often the total amount of energy radiated away by a black surface is
of interest. To get it, simply integrate the emitted radiation
(6.12) over all values of the frequency. You will want to
make a change of integration variable to
A surface that is not perfectly black will absorb only a fraction of
the radiation that hits it. The fraction is called the “absorptivity”
Helmholtz discovered that the absorptivity and emissivity of a surface are equal in thermal equilibrium, {D.28}. So poor absorbers are also poor emitters of radiation. That is why lightweight emergency blankets typically have reflective metallic coatings. You would think that they would want to absorb, rather than reflect, the heat of incoming radiation. But if they did, then according to Helmholtz they would also radiate precious body heat away to the surroundings.
Since a surface cannot absorb more radiation than hits it, the absorptivity cannot be greater than one, It follows that the emissivity cannot be greater than one either. No surface can absorb better or emit better than a perfectly black one. At least not when in thermodynamic equilibrium.
Note that absorptivity and emissivity typically depend on
electromagnetic frequency. Substances that seem black to the eye may
not be at invisible electromagnetic frequencies and vice-verse. It
remains true for any given electromagnetic frequency that the
absorptivity and emissivity at that frequency are equal. To soak up
the heat of the sun in a solar energy application, you want your
material to be black in the visible frequency range emitted by the
6 000 K surface of the sun. However, you want it to be
white
in the infrared range emitted at the operating
temperature of the material, in order that it does not radiate the
heat away again.
Absorptivity and emissivity may also depend on the direction of the radiation, polarization, temperature, pressure, etcetera. In thermodynamic equilibrium, absorptivity and emissivity must still be equal, but only at the same frequency and same directions of radiation and polarization.
For surfaces that are not black, formula (6.13) will need
to be modified for the relevant emissivity. A simplifying
grey body
assumption is often made that the
absorptivity, and so the emissivity, is constant. Absorptivity and
emissivity are usually defined as material properties, cited for
infinitely thick samples. For objects, the terms absorptance and
emittance are used.
Fluorescence/phosphorescence and stimulated emission (lasers) are important examples of radiative processes that are not in thermal equilibrium. The above discussion simply does not apply to them.
Key Points
- Blackbody radiation is the radiation emitted by a black surface that is in thermal equilibrium.
- Planck’s blackbody spectrum determines how much is radiated at each frequency.
- Surfaces that are not black emit radiation that is less by a factor called the emissivity.
- Emissivity equals absorptivity for the same frequency and direction of radiation.
- If the material is not in thermal equilibrium, like energized materials, it is a completely different ball game.