Hi all,
One of my colleagues raised this question during a seminar (he doesn’t know the answer either) and it kinda bothers me a lot, so please help.
This maybe more or less a quantum physics question related to electron imaging stuff. So here it is
Why would the energy loss (deltaE) of an inelastic electron collision with Hydrogen different to Deuterium? Is the energy of electron in Hydrogen greater or smaller to Deuterium? and why?
Deuterium has a neutron inside its nucleus, so it has almost twice of the hydrogen's mass. Since energy loss in colisions is related to momentum transference, It depends on the mass of the particles. Thus, It may be different for H and D.
actually energy not lossed, it actually spreaded across that collision and that loss you not able to measured just because of less precision of instrument means that much energy consumed by your instrument only... so it might help u to answer..
Dear Binh,
the binding energy of an electron m is determined by the reduced mass
µ = m/(1+m/M) ; M is the mass of the core. Because D has a higher mass, than H, the reduced mass in D is higher than in H. Therefore, the binding energy in D is higher too. therefore, you need for D more energy to ionize this atom.
Yours
R. Mitdank
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