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Simple do-it-yourself experimental set-up for electron charge $q_e$ measurement

Physics Education 2018-10-26 v4

Abstract

A simple experiment for the electron charge qeq_e measurement is described. The experimental set-up contains standard electronic equipment only and can be built in every high-school lab all around the world with pocket money budget for several days. It is concluded that it is time such a practice to be included in the regular high-school education. The achieved 13\% accuracy is comparable to the best student university labs. The measurement is based on Schottky noise generated by a photodiode. Using the criterion dollar per accuracy for the electron charge qeq_e measurement, this definitely is the world's best educational experiment. An industrial replica can be easily sold across the globe.

Cite

@article{arxiv.1807.04688,
  title  = {Simple do-it-yourself experimental set-up for electron charge $q_e$ measurement},
  author = {T. M. Mishonov and E. G. Petkov and N. Zh. Mihailova and A. A. Stefanov and I. M. Dimitrova and V. N. Gourev and N. S. Serafimov and V. I. Danchev and A. M. Varonov},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1807.04688},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

10 pages, 9 figures, 3 tables, last version corresponds to the published version in Eur. J. Phys, Eq. (15-17) have been corrected and minor typographical improvements have been made

R2 v1 2026-06-23T02:59:13.655Z