Oil drop experiment

The oil drop experiment was performed by Robert A. Millikan and Harvey Fletcher in 1909 to measure the elementary electric charge (the charge of the electron).^[1][2] The experiment took place in the Ryerson Physical Laboratory at the University of Chicago.^[3][4][5] Millikan received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1923.^[6]

The experiment entailed observing tiny electrically charged droplets of oil located between two parallel metal surfaces, forming the plates of a capacitor. The plates were oriented horizontally, with one plate above the other. A mist of atomized oil drops was introduced through a small hole in the top plate and was ionized by x-rays, making them negatively charged. First, with zero applied electric field, the velocity of a falling droplet was measured. At terminal velocity, the drag force equals the gravitational force. As both forces depend on the radius in different ways, the radius of the droplet, and therefore the mass and gravitational force, could be determined (using the known density of the oil). Next, a voltage inducing an electric field was applied between the plates and adjusted until the drops were suspended in mechanical equilibrium, indicating that the electrical force and the gravitational force were in balance. Using the known electric field, Millikan and Fletcher could determine the charge on the oil droplet. By repeating the experiment for many droplets, they confirmed that the charges were all small integer multiples of a certain base value, which was found to be 1.5924(17)×10⁻¹⁹ C, about 0.6% difference from the currently accepted value of 1.602176634×10⁻¹⁹ C.^[7] They proposed that this was the magnitude of the negative charge of a single electron.