Automation of the Franck Hertz Experiment

Abstract

We have built and tested a computer controlled Franck Hertz experiment. This includes the circuitry to interface the experiment with an Apple II microcomputer equipped with a commercial Analog to Digital and Digital to Analog converter card (ADC+DAC), data acquisition programs using Apple Pascal, and data analysis programs using VAX Pascal. The Franck-Hertz experiment is widely used as an instructional physics lab. Automating data collection and analysis permits a more objective evaluation of the quality of the results. It is, therefore, now possible to systematically explore the operating parameters of oven temperature, filament voltage, and retarding potential to determine optimum settings.