PHOTOELECTRIC

DEVICES
 What is photoelectric Effect?
• When light shines on a metal, electrons can be ejected from the surface of the metal in
a phenomenon known as the photoelectric effect

Photoelectrons

• The electrons that are ejected from the metal due to photoelectric effect are called
photoelectrons
 Photon:
• A photon is a particle of light defined as a discrete bundle of
light energy.
 What happens when light strikes certain
light-sensitive materials?
• It may cause them to give electrons.
• It may change their ability to conduct electricity.
• It may cause them to develop an electrical potential, or voltage across two surfaces.
( These are called photoelectric devices.)
 Types of Photoelectric cells:
1. Photo Emissive cell :
• Consists of two electrodes : cathode and
anode
• Cathode is coated with photo sensitive
material like sodium, potassium or cesium
• Anode is just a wire made of nickel or
platinum
• When light is exposed to cathode, electrons
ejects and collected at anode
2. Photoconductive cell
It’s electrical conductivity varies
when exposed to light energy. It
uses the semiconductor material
like cadmium selenide, Ge, Se, as
a photo sensing element.

Conduction Band

Valance Band
Photo Voltaic Cell (PV)

The key feature of a PV cell is the pn junction. The photovoltaic effect is the basic physical
process by which a PV cell converts sunlight into electricity. Sunlight contains photons or “packets”
of energy sufficient to create electron-hole pairs in the n and p regions. When an external load is
connected, the electrons flow through the semiconductor material and provide current to the
external load.
 Applications of Photo Conductive cell :
1. Light Dependent Resistor :
When exposed to light resistance
decreases. When dark resistance is high Automatic street light

Used in automatic street light, alarm

devices at detector of beam light
Burglar Alarm/Automatic Door Opening

Load

When exposed to light, photo circuit is

Electro
magnetic ON and main circuit is OFF. When
Material someone cuts the light signal. Photo
circuit stopes working and main circuit
turns ON
Photoelectric Smoke Detector

Photoelectric smoke detectors

therefore use light in a different way.
Inside the smoke detector there is a
light and a sensor, but they are
positioned at 90-degree angles to
one another. In the normal case, the
light from the light source on the left
shoots straight across and misses
the sensor.

When smoke enters the chamber,

however, the smoke particles
scatter the light and some amount
of light hits the sensor: