The laser in a standard laser printer emits light with a wavelength of 780.0 nm. What is the energy of a photon of this light?
Strategy We know the connection between photon energy and wavelength, which is given by Equation 6.3. Again, care with units requires conversion from nanometers to meters.
E=λhc (6.3)
780.0nm×1×109nm1m=7.800×10−7m
E= 7.800 10−7m6.626×10−34 J s×2.998×108ms−1=2.547×10−19 J
Analyze Your Answer The result is a very small number. But we should realize that Planck’s constant is incredibly small—many orders of magnitude smaller than the other quantities in the problem. So a very small energy is likely. Beyond that, we can again rely on a general sense of the magnitude of the quantity we are calculating. For visible light, photon energies are typically on the order of 10−19 J, which makes our answer seem plausible.
Check Your Understanding An infrared laser for use in a fiber-optic communications network emits at a wavelength of 1.2 μm. What is the energy of one photon of this radiation?