photon

A photon () is an elementary particle that is a quantum of the electromagnetic field, including electromagnetic radiation such as light and radio waves, and the force carrier for the electromagnetic force. Photons are massless particles that can only move at one speed, the speed of light measured in a vacuum. The photon belongs to the class of boson particles.

OverviewAI-generated

A photon is a particle with a spin quantum number of 1 and an electric charge of 0. It has a mass of 0.000000000000000000001 and a mean lifetime of 1. The particle possesses a charge conjugation quantum number of -1 and a parity quantum number of -1. Its half-life is also recorded as 1.

The concept was discovered or invented in 1923. In academic literature, the term appears in 326,409 PubMed records. It is referenced by 2,045 other encyclopedia articles. The subject is categorized under the Commons category "Photon" and carries the Monte Carlo Particle Number 22.

Synthesized by Vinony from 14 facts across 3 sources: Wikidata, PubMed, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.

Key facts

Particle.name: Photon
Particle.composition: Elementary particle
Particle.statistics: Bose–Einstein statistics
Particle.group: Gauge boson
Particle.interaction: Electromagnetic, gravity
Particle.theorized: Albert Einstein (1905) The name "photon" is generally attributed to Gilbert N. Lewis (1926)
Particle.mean_lifetime: Stable
Particle.electric_charge: 0
Particle.color_charge: No
Particle.spin: 1 ħ
Particle.num_spin_states: +1 ħ,  −1 ħ
Particle.parity: −1
Particle.c_parity: −1
Particle.condensed_symmetries: I(J PC) = 0, 1 (1−−)

via Wikipedia infobox

Research

326,409 papers

Multi-Photon Microscopy.ReviewCurrent protocols · 2023Sanderson JDOI: 10.1002/cpz1.634
Photon upmanship: why multiphoton imaging is more than a gimmick.ReviewNeuron · 1997Denk W, Svoboda KDOI: 10.1016/s0896-6273(00)81237-4
Two-photon excitation fluorescence microscopy.ReviewAnnual review of biomedical engineering · 2000So PT, Dong CY, Masters BR et al.DOI: 10.1146/annurev.bioeng.2.1.399
Two-photon excitation fluorescence bioassays.ReviewAnnals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2008Hänninen P, Soukka J, Soini JTDOI: 10.1196/annals.1430.040
Advances in adaptive optics-based two-photon fluorescence microscopy for brain imaging.ReviewLasers in medical science · 2020Sahu P, Mazumder NDOI: 10.1007/s10103-019-02908-z
Multi-photon imaging.Current protocols in cytometry · 2010Padmanabhan K, Andrews SE, Fitzpatrick JADOI: 10.1002/0471142956.cy0209s54
Nanostructured materials for photon detection.ReviewNature nanotechnology · 2010Konstantatos G, Sargent EHDOI: 10.1038/nnano.2010.78
Twin-photon confocal microscopy.Optics express · 2010Simon DS, Sergienko AVDOI: 10.1364/OE.18.022147

via PubMed

~43 min read

Encyclopedic overview

23 sections

Contents

Physical properties
Energy and momentum
Polarization and spin angular momentum
Antiparticle annihilation
Experimental checks on photon mass
Historical development
Nomenclature
Wave–particle duality and uncertainty principles
Bose–Einstein model of a photon gas
Stimulated and spontaneous emission
Quantum field theory
Quantization of the electromagnetic field
As a gauge boson
Hadronic properties
Contributions to the mass of a system
In matter
Technological applications
Quantum optics and computation
See also
Notes
References
Further reading
External links

As with other elementary particles, photons are best explained by quantum mechanics and exhibit wave–particle duality, their behavior featuring properties of both waves and particles. The modern photon concept originated during the first two decades of the 20th century with the work of Albert Einstein, who built upon the research of Max Planck. While Planck was trying to explain how matter and electromagnetic radiation could be in thermal equilibrium with one another, he proposed that the energy stored within a material object should be regarded as composed of an integer number of discrete, equal-sized parts. To explain the photoelectric effect, Einstein introduced the idea that light itself is made of discrete units of energy. In 1926, Gilbert N. Lewis popularized the term photon for these energy units. Subsequently, many other experiments validated Einstein's approach.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “photon” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.