Millikan's Oil

Drop
Experiment
Lecture 1
 After the discovery of the electron and calculation of
the e/m ratio by J.J. Thomson in 1897, Millikan sought
a way to measure the charge of an electron. If the
charge could be found, the electron mass could also
be calculated using e/m. He assumed (correctly) at
Motivation the time that all electrons carried the same charge.

Millikan conducted an experiment that allowed him to

determine the charge of an oil drop. According to his
assumption all charges on oil drops must be a multiple
of the electron charge.
 In the box you will find:
• A device containing two plates that are to be connected to a power
source so a voltage can be applied between them, producing a
A Look at the uniform electric field
• A nozzle containing oil, so that small, charged oil drops can be
Apparatus sprayed between the plates
• A camera connected to a screen that displays a live feed of the area
between the plates
• A light to be shone between the plates so you can see what’s going
on
Experimental Set Up:
 Question!
How do the oil drops become charged?
Answer:
Frictional effects
between the sides of
the nozzle an the oil

(In other variants of

the experiment the oil
drops are ionised using
X-rays)
 Oil drops are sprayed in
Procedure between the plates. You will
notice with no applied
voltage (therefore no
electric field) the oil drops
fall due to gravity.
Once a voltage is applied
between the plates, you will
notice some drops will slow
down but keep moving
down, a few will stop
moving and others will start
moving upwards.
 1. Why do some
droplets move
up and others
down?

2. Why have
some of the
droplets stopped
Questions! moving?
Answers
1. Oil drops that are moving up
either contain many
electrons or have a low mass
(or both), as the force they
experience due to the
electric field is greater than
their weight.
Drops that are moving down
either contain a small amount of
electrons or have a large mass
(or both), as their weight is
larger than the electric force.

2. The stationary drops are in

equilibrium – the electric force is
equal to the weight.
A Stationary electron
Where do the forces belong on the
+V diagram?

Balancing Forces:
0V
𝐹! = 𝐹"
!
Force due to gravity: ? 𝑚𝑔 = 𝑞
𝐹! = 𝑚𝑔 "
Force due to electric field: ?
# Question: Which of the above
𝐹" = 𝑞𝐸 = 𝑞 $ quantities would be hard to
measure?
A Stationary electron
Where do the forces belong on the
+V diagram?

Balancing Forces:
0V
𝐹! = 𝐹"
!
Force due to gravity: ? 𝑚𝑔 = 𝑞
𝐹! = 𝑚𝑔 "
Force due to electric field: ?
# Question: Which of the above
𝐹" = 𝑞𝐸 = 𝑞 $ quantities would be hard to
measure?
 Answer:
Mass!
How would we get around this problem? Any ideas?
Use density!
Density Equation: 𝜌 = %⁄# V = volume
Ø 𝑚 = 𝜌𝑉
Volume of a spherical oil droplet?
4 &
𝑉 = 𝜋𝑟
3
#
Therefore mass: 𝑚 = 𝜋𝜌𝑟 $
$
Back to our equation
Lets go back to our original equation and insert our new value for m:
mg
𝑉
=𝑞
𝑑

m
4
= 𝜋𝜌𝑟 &
3
Using the value of m in the first equation above,
 We now have:
4 !
𝑉
𝜋𝑔𝜌𝑟 = 𝑞
3 𝑑
𝐹" = 𝐹#
Question: Are there any other forces to
consider?
 Answer
• Yes! Remember the drop is in air, not a vacuum, so there is an
upwards buoyancy force equal to the weight of air displaced
(Archimedes' principle)

Question: What is the expression for the

buoyancy force?
Hint – Consider the expression for the weight of the oil drop
 Answer
• The expression is simply the weight of air displaced – the same as the
weight of the oil drop but using the density of air instead of oil.

4 %
𝐹! = 𝜋𝑔𝜌"#$ 𝑟
3
Back to our equation

• We now have:
𝐹! = 𝐹' + 𝐹"

( & ( & #
𝜋𝑔𝜌𝑟 = 𝜋𝑔𝜌)*+ 𝑟 + 𝑞
& & $
This can easily be solved for q to obtain:
40 𝜋 𝜌 − 𝜌 𝑔𝑟 &
𝑑
𝑞= 3 )*+
𝑉
Task: Try to confirm this result for yourselves
Question: Which of these quantities would be hard to measure?
 Answer
• The radius r. To get around this, we use stokes law.

𝐹 = 6πη𝑟𝑣
• At terminal velocity, this is equal to the weight of the drop

𝑚𝑔 = 6πη𝑟𝑣
• Remember: η is the viscosity of air
𝑣 is the terminal velocity of the oil drop
• After Substituting in the weight from the earlier expression and a bit
of algebra:

9η𝑣,
𝑟=
2 𝑝-*. − 𝑝)*+ 𝑔
• You will notice that we can now measure all quantities easily. Think
about how you could measure terminal velocity.
• We can now substitute for r in our original equation and obtain a
value for q
 ! !
6π𝑑 9η 𝑣"
𝑞= ×
𝑉 2 ρ#$% − ρ&$' 𝑔
• Since all quantities are now measureable, we can find the charge on
the oil drop.
Values of constants
• air viscosity, η = 1.83 ± 0.04 × 10−5 Nsm−2
• oil density, ρ = 874 ± 2 kgm−3 at 20◦C
• air density, ρ = 1.30 ± 0.05 kgm−3 at 20◦C
• plate spacing, d = 6.00 ± 0.05 × 10−3 m
• friction coefficient, A = 7.7776 ± 0.0001 × 10−8 m