Talk:Work function

message: This isn't my field, but I can't see how, "The work function is not a characteristic of a bulk material, but rather a property of the surface of the material (depending on crystal face and contamination)" isn't either confusing or simply wrong, depending on how one interprets it. The equation in the definition, -e(phi) - Ef, relates the work function to the Fermi level, which *is* dependent on the bulk material. If surface contamination dominates the work function to the extent that the bulk material is irrelevant, then the contaminant itself essentially becomes the bulk material. Perhaps something like, "The work function is a measured quantity dependent on a material's Fermi level and the characteristics of the surface on which it is being measured" would be more useful.
Alt Livingston (talk) 21:37, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmm, that sentence could be written better. The point is that for a given blob of conductor (constant Ef throughout), -e(phi) varies from surface to surface. Thus, the work function is also surface-depndent. (Indeed Ef has nothing to do with the surface material or bulk material, it is just the applied electrochemical potential). --Nanite (talk) 23:11, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Misleading/confusing statement in opening paragraph 

message: This is a question about work fonction for a glass surface:
How does the work function change when the glass surface is 'wet' i.e. it is covered with few monolayers of water?
How doe the work function change when the glass surface is covered by some deposits? How does this change depends on the composition of these depostits?
Will be very grateful for any information or for suggestions how to make such measurements..
Adam Para, para@fnal.gov
: The question is 4 years old now, but an answer anyway - Yes, the work function can change, for example when a charge transfer from adsorbate to the surface occurs. One can reason that, when adsorbate electrons are transferred the surface, the work function will decrease, and vice versa. In the case of water adsorption this effect might be smaller then compared to ion adsorption, when the dipole of the surface will not be changed too much by the presence of the water.
: See for example the paper concerning water and alkali metal ions on graphite is given in J. Chem. Phys. 125, 014708 (2006) 
: -- Mipmip 11:27, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Work function on a glass surface 

message: does the work function depend on the charge of the material?  i would imagine it does. - Omegatron 20:45, May 20, 2005 (UTC)
:looks like it does: "The same process will charge a spacecraft orbiting in the sunlight positively, to a few volts. Sunlight knocks out electrons from the surface and a few manage to escape, leaving the spacecraft positively charged; the situation then stabilizes, because the positive charge prevents any more electrons from leaving." - Omegatron 21:46, May 20, 2005 (UTC)
:No, it tells you how much charge or voltage you would need to apply to the material to get an electron off. This is briefly mentioned as "retarding potential" in the article. 128.111.74.89 (talk) 21:43, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dependence on charge of material 

message: This comment was left on the page:
:You need to say what "N" is.  You need to identify explicitly "V".  From your definition I do not think it is the vacuum level.  Also the fermi energy and the chemical potential (neither of which you define and assume the reader knows) aren't always the same thing.  This is a place where people come to find out things they don't know.  Define all your terms.  A derivation would be nice.
I am postint it here, where it belongs -- Marco ✉ 16:45, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Define the terms on the formula 

message: does anyone have any idea where this term comes from? it kind of stands out relative to the names of other material properties.
:Good question - why is it named a "function" if it is really just a "value"?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.28.74.115 (talk) 05:22, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  origin of term 

message: how come caesium is quoted as two different work function 1.9 eV in text and 2.14 eV in the table. which is correct?
--Liamstone (talk) 06:38, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  caesium 

message: "A saturation state of the filament current is reached, where a minor change in the filament current does not affect the beam current. The electron gun is then operated with the filament current very near the potential to overcome the work function (W)(Goldstein, 2003)"
For any normal material (and certainly for W as the data of Jones & Langmuir showed long ago) more filament current results in higher temperature (say,  T \propto \sqrt{I} )...so I always affects T
"filament current..near..potential" amps cannot be volts!
"When an electron gains energy, it jumps from one energy level to another in "quantum leaps." This process is called exciting an electron, and the higher energy levels are called "excited states" while the bottom level is called "ground state.""
true, but not really relevant as ejection is to a continuum of states..perhaps just a link to Electron excitation
Tkirkman (talk)  —Preceding comment was added at 17:32, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  delete? 

message: The article states an exact number for the Richardson constant during the thermionic discussion, and then states that it's material specific during the later discussion on measurement techniques.  It's possible that both are right to some extent (see this abstract http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/112433017/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0), but a sentence explaining the "real world" variations from theory should be included possibly in both places, perhaps?Grj23 (talk) 00:38, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inconsistency in Richardson Constant 

message: I noticed in the Methods based on thermionic emission and Work function of cold electron collector sections that the equations looked strikingly similar to those of the Arrhenius equation, so I ran a Ctrl+F search for "Arrh" and got nothing. Would someone with deeper understanding of the equations involved be able to either edit in how they are related, or possibly explain why neither of these two articles reference each other as using very-similar equations? PolymathGirl (talk) 16:23, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: The way I see it is like this: both the Arrhenius equation and thermionic emission both inherit from a more fundamental law of thermal excitation, which is the Boltzmann distribution. That's where the exponential term comes from. They're not entirely similar however --- you'll notice in the case of thermionic emission there is also a T^2 prefactor (which turns out to come from the three-dimensionality of the emission process). --Nanite (talk) 20:17, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Add comment about [[Arrhenius Equation]] maybe?? 

message: Characterizing work function as solid state physics seems inadequate.  "The same work function was found for solid or liquid mercury." Jim Bowery (talk) 18:02, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Liquid Surface Work Function?