When electron was discovered, the various experiments to characterize it showed that an electron behaves as a particle. In Bohr's theory, electron is treated as a particle. In 1924, Louis de Broglie suggested that just as light exhibits wave and particle properties, all microscopic material particles in motion such as electrons, protons, atoms ions, molecules etc. have also dual character. In other words, the microscopic particles in motion possess both the particle and wave characteristics. Thus, according to de-Broglie, "all material particles in motion possess wave characteristics".
According to de-Broglie, the wavelength associated with a particle of mass m, moving with velocity v, is given by the relation, l = h/mv where 'h' is Planck's constant and 'mv' is the momentum of the particle. The waves associated with material particles are called matter waves.
Dual Nature of Matter and Radiation
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Light has been regarded as waves to explain the phenomena of reflection, refraction, diffraction etc. However in 1905, Albert Einstein suggested that light has a dual character, which means, it can behave as a particle as well as a wave. It was observed that some of the experimental facts regarding light could be explained only by assuming light to have particle like character while some other experimental facts could only be explained by assuming wave like character for light radiations. Since light is a kind of radiation, it may be concluded that all radiations behave like waves as well as particles. Such a wave like and particle like nature of radiation is known as dual nature of radiation.
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