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WHAT IS WORK FUNCTION

You must be aware of photoelectric effect. It is the phenomenon of emission of electron from a material caused by an incident radiation of certain frequency. Einstein’s photoelectric equation can be written as:

https://s3mn.mnimgs.com/img/shared/userimages/mn_images/image/21_2.png

Here, hν is the total energy of a photon of incident radiation.

Φ0 is the work function and KE is the kinetic energy of the electron emitted.

Here, work function is the minimum energy required for an incident radiation to emit electron. It depends on the nature of the material (usually metals).

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The minimum quantity of energy that is required to remove an electron to infinity from the surface of a given solid, usually a metal.

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The work function (wf) is the least amount of energy required to remove an electron from the surface of a conducting material, to a point just outside the metal with zero kinetic energy. 
As the electron has to move through the surface region, it’s energy is influenced by the optical, electric and mechanical characteristics of the region. 
Hence, wf is an extremely sensitive indicator of surface condition and is affected by absorbed or evaporated layers, surface reconstruction, surface charging, oxide layer imperfections, surface and bulk contamination, etc.

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