what is de-broglie hypothesis ?
Answers
Explanation:
The De Broglie hypothesis proposes that all matter exhibits wave-like properties and relates the observed wavelength of matter to its momentum. After Albert Einstein's photon theory became accepted, the question became whether this was true only for light or whether material objects also exhibited wave-like behavior.
De-Broglie hypothesis:
A French physicist De Broglie ( in 1924 )extended the idea of the dual character of light to matter particles (e.g. electron, proton, neutron, atoms or molecules etc.) and suggested that all matter particles in motion exhibit this dual behaviour i.e., all matter particles possess characteristics of both a material particle and a wave just as the light.
The wave nature of a particle is quantified by de Broglie wavelength defined as :
λ= h×p
where, p= momentum of the particle.
This was called a hypothesis because there was no evidence for it when it was proposed, only analogies with existing theories. (The wavelength-momentum relation holds exactly for photons.)