Snehashis Parashar
Last Activity: 12 Years ago
Ionization energy is the minimum amount of energy required to remove an electron from the outermost shell of an atom, thus giving it a charge.
Work function is the minimum amount of energy required to remove an electron from a solid surface to just outside of the surface(as in photoelectric effect). The final electron position is far from the surface on the atomic scale, but still too close to the solid to be influenced by ambient electrostatic potentials in the vacuum.