THE ELECTRONIC STRUCTURE OF MATTER

• Rutherford’s atomic model pictures the atom as mostly empty space and its mass is concentrated in the nucleus,
where you find the protons and the neutrons.
• His model could not explain why metals or compounds of metals give off characteristic colors when heated in a
flame, or why objects–when heated to much higher temperatures first glow to dull red, then to yellow, and then to
white.

• Niels Bohr refined Rutherford’s model of an atom.

• Based on his experiments, Bohr described the electron to be moving in definite orbits around the nucleus.
• Much later, scientists discovered that it is impossible to determine the exact location of electrons in an atom.

WHY DO CERTAIN ELEMENTS GIVE OFF LIGHT OF SPECIFIC COLOR WHEN HEAT IS APPLIED?
• Elements emit colors when heated because electrons in atoms can have only certain allowed energies.
• Heating an atom excites its electrons and they jump to higher energy levels. When the electrons return to
lower energy levels, they emit energy in the form of light.
• The color of the light depends on the difference in energy between the two levels. Every element has a
different number of electrons and a different set of energy levels. Thus, each element emits its own set of
colors.
• A flame test could be used to identify the elements and the energy it produced.

Name of Elements Flame Color

Sodium Yellow
Copper Green
Lithium Light Red
Lead Pale Blue
Calcium Brick Red
ATOMIC SPECTRA OF ELEMENTS
• When atoms are excited, they emit light of certain wavelengths which correspond to different colors.
• The emitted light can be observed as a series of colored lines with dark spaces in between; this series of
colored lines is called a line or atomic spectra.
• Each element produces a unique set of spectral lines. Since no two elements emit the same spectral lines,
elements can be identified by their line spectrum.

• The energy levels of electrons are like the steps of a ladder. The lowest step of the ladder corresponds to the
lowest energy level.
• A person can climb up and down by going from step to step.
• Similarly, the electrons can move from one energy level to another by absorbing or releasing energy.
• Energy levels in an atom are not equally spaced which means that the amount of energy is not the same.
• The higher energy levels are closer together. If an electron occupies a higher energy level, it will take less energy
for it to move to the next higher energy level.
• As a result of the Bohr model, electrons are described as occupying fixed energy levels at a certain distance from
the nucleus of an atom.

• However, Bohr’s model of the atom was not sufficient to describe atoms with more than one electron.
• The way around the problem with the Bohr’s model is to know the arrangement of electrons in atoms in terms of
the probability of finding an electron in certain locations within the atom.
• Bohr’s idea that electrons are found in definite orbits around the nucleus was rejected.
• Three physicists led the development of a better model of the atom. These were Louie de Broglie, Erwin
Schrodinger, and Werner Karl Heisenberg.
• De Broglie proposed that the electron (which is thought of as a particle) could also be thought of as a wave.
• Schrodinger used this idea to develop a mathematical equation to describe the hydrogen atom.
• Heisenberg discovered that for a very small particle like the electron, its location cannot be exactly known and
how it is moving. This is called the Uncertainty Principle.
• These scientists believed that there is only a probability that the electron can be found in a certain volume in space
around the nucleus.
• This volume or region of space around the nucleus where the electron is most likely to be found is called an
atomic orbital.
• The quantum mechanical model views an electron as a cloud of negative charge having a certain geometrical
shape.
• This model shows how likely an electron could be found in various locations around the nucleus.
• However, the model does not give any information about how the electron moves from one position to another.

• The quantum mechanical model gives information about the energy of the electron.
• The model also describes the region of space around the nucleus as consisting of shells. These shells are also
called principal or main energy levels.
• The principal energy levels or shells may have one or more sublevels. These sublevels are assigned with letters: s,
p, d, f, and g.
• Orbitals have specific energy values. They have particular shapes and direction in space.
• The s orbitals are spherical, and p orbitals are dumbbell shaped.
• The shapes of other orbitals (d and f orbitals) were derived from complex calculation.

• In an atom, electrons and the nucleus interact to make the most stable arrangement possible.
• The way in which electrons are distributed in the different orbitals around the nucleus of an atom is called the
electron configuration.
RULES GOVERNING ELECTRON CONFIGURATION
1. Aufbau Principle - requires that the electrons occupy the lowest possible energy level before filling up the
next.
2. Pauli’s Exclusion Principle - states that no two electrons can have the same set of four quantum numbers; the
spin quantum number limits the number of electrons in an orbital to a maximum of two.
3. Hund’s Rule - states that every orbital in a subshell is singly occupied with one electron before any one
orbital is doubly occupied, and all electrons in singly occupied orbitals have the same spin.

FOUR KINDS OF QUANTUM NUMBERS

1. Principal Quantum Number (n) - describes the energy level of an
electron in an atom. It can be expressed using the letters of an
alphabet like K, L, M, N, O, P and Q energy level.

2. Angular Momentum Quantum Number (l) - describes the way on

how the electrons move around the nucleus. It determines the shape
of an orbital.

3. Magnetic Quantum Number (ml) - refers to the possible behavior of the electrons in a magnetic field.

4. Spin Quantum Number (ms) - describes the rotations or the

spins on how the electrons move on their own axis as they
move around the nucleus. The electron spinning clockwise
has the - ½ values. The electrons that are spinning
counterclockwise have the + ½ values.