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Evan Rule
May 8, 2013
Abstract
In order to investigate the nature of the atomic nucleus, we carry out a series of scattering
experiments to measure the deection of -particles passing through a thin metal foil. By
observing phenomena such as back-scattering, we can draw qualitative conclusions about the
structure of the atom, and by measuring the angular dependence of the scattering rate we can
make a determination of the atomic number of aluminum, which we nd to be Z
Al
= 13.
1 Introduction
Determining the structure of the atom was one of the primary goals of early 20th century physics.
Prior to 1911, the accepted model of the atom was the so-called plum pudding model, which
hypothesized that the atom consists of negative charges distributed throughout a positively charged
sphere. In 1909, Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden, under the direction of Ernest Rutherford,
carried out a scattering experiment to probe the nature of the atom. The results of this experiment
contradicted the predictions of the plum pudding model and eventually led to the development of
the Bohr model of the atom.
Rutherford scattering occurs when a beam of -particles is directed normally onto a sheet of
thin gold foil in a vacuum chamber. The -particles interact with the atoms in the foil via the
Coulomb force and scatter elastically. While many -particles pass directly through the foil, the
interesting result occurs when particles are deected at large angles (in some cases > 90
). These
large deections suggest that the atom consists of a small, dense, positively charge nucleus, not a
large positively charged sphere as described by the plum pudding model.
2 Experiment and Data
In order to probe the nature of the atom, we employ a modernized version of the apparatus used
by Geiger and Marsden. By measuring the scattering rate N at dierent scattering angles , we
can make a determination of the angular dependency of the counting rate. Based on the scattering
theory developed from the results of Rutherfords experiments, we anticipate the relation
N() = N
0
c
f
d
f
d
d
, (1)
where N
0
is the incident -particle rate, c
f
is the atomic concentration of the foil, d
f
is the thickness
of the foil, is the solid angle into which the particles are scattered, and d/d is the dierential
cross section dened as
d
d
=
Z
1
Z
2
e
2
8
0
E
2
1
sin
4
(/2)
. (2)
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Figure 1: An overview of the Rutherford Scattering experiment. (1) is the vacuum scattering chamber, (2)
is the discriminator preamplier, (3) is the digital counter. (Image taken from Leybold Didactic)
Here, Z
1
and Z
2
are the atomic numbers of the foil particles and -particles, respectively, and
E
and 20
and 30
.
After data collection for gold is complete, we carefully depressurize the chamber, remove the
gold foil and replace it with the aluminum foil sample. We then evacuate the chamber and set the
angle to 10
and the corresponding errors. Here, we assume that the distribution of measurements for each
angle is roughly Gaussian. The black line shows the best-t function (see Eq. (6)).
covered by an opaque black cloth. These results will allow us to check whether the excess lighting
can aect our results.
In order to observe back-scattering (i.e. scattering at large angles), we replace the 1-mm col-
limator with the 5-mm collimator. We then set the angle to = 120
=2.5
. We can then use this distribution to compare our results to the theoretically determined
relation
N()
1
sin
4
(/2)
. (4)
3
Figure 3: This plot shows the number of counts recorded in a 60 second interval for 2,000 consecutive time
intervals. For these trials, the angle was set to 0
Z
1
Z
2
e
2
8
0
E
2
. (8)
From the literature, we adopt c
f
= 5.9 10
22
cm
3
, Z
1
= 79, Z
2
= 2, E
as our ducial
trial, which yields
Z
Al
= 13.0 0.6, (11)
from which we determine that the most likely value for the atomic number of Aluminum is Z
Al
=
13. Here, the error was obtained by adding the relevant errors in quadrature. Indeed, the atomic
number of Aluminum is 13. Given our accuracy in determining this value, we can take this as
further evidence that our poor t in Fig. 2 is the result of some systematic error introduced by
our tting algorithm. At the very least, we can conclude that any systematic errors present in our
apparatus have an equal eect on both gold and aluminum scattering.
A nal systematic error which we investigate is whether or not shielding the scattering chamber
from sources of light has any eect on our measurements. To do so, we examine the results of
our measurements for aluminum, half of which were taken with the chamber covered and half with
the chamber exposed to the well-lit room. We nd that the average number of counts recorded
within a 60 second interval agree within error between the two sets of trials. However, the standard
deviation of the uncovered trials is nearly twice as large as the standard deviation of the covered
trials. This could be evidence that covering the apparatus improves the reliability of the detector,
but more data is needed to draw conclusions with any certainty.
Lastly, we recount that we observed back-scattering of -particles at angle 120
. Scattering
at such a large angle is evidence that the atom consists of a small, very dense nucleus which is
positively charged. This picture of the atom runs contradictory to Thompsons plum-pudding
model. Therefore, based on the results of the Rutherford scattering experiment, we can reject the
plum-pudding model of the atom in favor of a model much closer to that developed by Niels Bohr.
5 Conclusion
Based on our quantitative results, we can conclude that the counting rate varies with the scattering
angle according to
N()
1
sin
4
(/2)
. (12)
We determine the constant of proportionality for this relationship to be c
2
= (3.3 0.7) 10
8
s
1
, which agrees well with the theory of Rutherford scattering. We also make an experimental
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determination of the atomic number of aluminum and nd that Z
Al
= 13. From our quantitative
results, we note that our best-t function for the angular dependence was less than ideal and that
the source of this error is likely the model which we employed to account for background noise.
With regards to our qualitative result, the observation of scattering at angles larger than 90
is an
indication that plum pudding model of the atom is incorrect. Alternatively, we propose a model in
which the atom consists of a small, dense, positively charged nucleus.
References
[1] Leybold Didactic, Rutherford Scattering Instruction Sheet, 1990.
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