Electron Diffraction
A beam of electrons were fired at a thin sample of atoms and the diffraction pattern was detected and then examined.
The graph shows a minimum at a value of θmin. We can use this to find a value of the nuclear radius.
Where D is the nuclear radius and λ is the de Broglie wavelength of the beam of electrons. We can calculate this as follows:
The kinetic energy gained by the electrons is where e is the charge on the electron and V is the potential difference used to accelerate it. So we now have:
We can now substitute this into the equation for de Broglie wavelength: