Year 12
Side B5: Particle Physics
Finish Year 12 Side B with atomic structure, radioactive decay, and fundamental particles.
Part of Year 12 CIE Physics 9702.
Topic Overview
What students will cover
This topic stays concise and conceptually clean. You need a stable account of atomic structure, isotope notation, and decay equations before moving into quark composition and particle classification. The main aim is to keep conservation ideas visible: charge, nucleon number, and energy all constrain the changes that can happen in nuclear and particle processes.
Revision
Topic revision route
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Recall vocabulary
alpha scattering
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nucleus
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proton number
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nucleon number
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isotope
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nuclide notation
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radioactive decay
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antiparticle
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neutrino
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quark
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hadron
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lepton
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proton
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neutron
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electron
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alpha radiation
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beta-minus decay
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beta-plus decay
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Resource bank
- Lesson resources
- 4
- Topic resources
- 0
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Syllabus CIE 9702 coverage in this topic
18 points across 3 lessons
Show details
CIE 9702 coverage in this topic
18 points across 3 lessons
11.1.1
infer from the results of the α-particle scattering experiment the existence and small size of the nucleus
11.1.2
describe a simple model for the nuclear atom to include protons, neutrons and orbital electrons
11.1.3
distinguish between nucleon number and proton number
11.1.4
understand that isotopes are forms of the same element with different numbers of neutrons in their nuclei
11.1.5
understand and use the notation AZ X for the representation of nuclides
11.1.6
understand that nucleon number and charge are conserved in nuclear processes
11.1.7
describe the composition, mass and charge of α-, β- and γ-radiations (both β – (electrons) and β+ (positrons) are included)
11.1.8
understand that an antiparticle has the same mass but opposite charge to the corresponding particle, and that a positron is the antiparticle of an electron
11.1.9
state that (electron) antineutrinos are produced during β – decay and (electron) neutrinos are produced during β+ decay
11.1.10
understand that α-particles have discrete energies but that β-particles have a continuous range of energies because (anti)neutrinos are emitted in β-decay
11.1.11
represent α- and β-decay by a radioactive decay equation of the form 238 92 U " 234 90 Th + 24 α
11.1.12
use the unified atomic mass unit (u) as a unit of mass
11.2.1
understand that a quark is a fundamental particle and that there are six flavours (types) of quark: up, down, strange, charm, top and bottom
11.2.2
recall and use the charge of each flavour of quark and understand that its respective antiquark has the opposite charge (no knowledge of any other properties of quarks is required)
11.2.3
recall that protons and neutrons are not fundamental particles and describe protons and neutrons in terms of their quark composition
11.2.4
understand that a hadron may be either a baryon (consisting of three quarks) or a meson (consisting of one quark and one antiquark)
11.2.5
describe the changes to quark composition that take place during β – and β+ decay
11.2.6
recall that electrons and neutrinos are fundamental particles called leptons
Lessons
Lesson sequence
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Lesson
01Atomic Structure and Isotopes
Introduce atomic structure and compare isotopes clearly.
Lesson
02Radioactive Decay
Use nuclear change to explain radioactive decay.
Lesson
03Fundamental Particles
Introduce the main fundamental particles used in the AS model.
Lesson
04Revision
Revision lesson for Side B5.