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Course: Physics library > Unit 17
Lesson 2: Atoms and electrons- De Broglie wavelength
- Quantum Wavefunction
- Atomic Energy Levels
- Bohr model radii (derivation using physics)
- Bohr model radii
- Bohr model energy levels (derivation using physics)
- Bohr model energy levels
- Absorption and emission
- Emission spectrum of hydrogen
- Bohr's model of hydrogen
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Atomic Energy Levels
In this video, David explains how an atom can absorb and emit photons with particular values of energy and how to determine the allowed values.
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- at aroundwhen the electron is at a -4eV energy level... I thought it could only absorb light of energies that were exactly equal to the difference in energy levels..at around the 4 minute mark .. he says there that the electron would not absorb the 5eV photo as it isn't 4eV or 6eV.. HELP 9:45(23 votes)
- Think of it this way, assume these energy levels are "orbits" (it really is nothing like an orbit as the electrons aren't "just" particles but we'll use this an analogy). There are only certain "orbits" that are allowed I.e. when you add energy levels to these electrons, they have to be in discrete packets that allow the jump to the next orbit or it falls back down to the current orbit... but if you send in so much energy to the electron that you pass the 0 EV state, the electron is no longer orbiting (it has reached escape velocity) and there is no discrete packet requirement.
Again, it is dangerous to think of these things as just being particles and having orbits like Newton shows as it makes understanding QM a bit harder but it does help when thinking of the Atomic Energy Levels.(29 votes)
- How and why electron comes back to ground state after being excited by gaining energy?(14 votes)
- Because of the attraction between electron in the outer shell and the proton in the nucleus.(5 votes)
- At, he says that the electron will only absorb a certain photon, but at 4:55, he says that the -4ev can absorb a 7ev photon. I don't get it. 9:39(12 votes)
- The electron can absorb photons that will make it's charge positive, but it will no longer be bound the the atom, and won't be a part of it.
For example at -10ev, it can absorb, 4eV (will move to -6eV), 6eV (will move to -4eV), 7eV (will move to -3eV), and anything above 7eV (will leave the atom)(12 votes)
- What happens to the electron after it leaves the atom?(5 votes)
- If enough energy is absorbed by the electron it leaves the parent atom making it a cation. Since atoms rarely occur in isolation this electron is taken by a neighn=bouring atom making that atom an anion.
Note: this energy to remove an electron from the atom is known as ionization enthalpy of the element and is a characteristic of nuclear pull on the electron.
Also, Beta radiation is when a neutron decays into a proton and an electron so the electron actually comes from the nucleus in that case.(7 votes)
- How does the electron 'jump' from one shell state to the next? It can't move there physically because it then has to move through between two shells physically which can't happen so, does it teleport?(7 votes)
- I have two qustions.
1] Why doesn't the electron degeneracy pressure take place within the atom and if it does, would ever be enough to expel an electron?
2] Why don't we have any nucleus that has an electron; doesn't the strong interaction force take place between the electrons?(6 votes)- Degeneracy pressure does exist in an atom. It prevents electrons in the atom from occupying the same quantum state.
Electrons don't feel the strong nuclear force.(3 votes)
- I'm troubled by the constraint of absorption requiring an EXACT quantitative match of photon energy and transition energy. If the exactness requirement of match can be infinite, then I would expect the match to never be good enough. Even if the levels constrained to integers or a specific denominator, then there would be some associated unit like electron volt, and then what would be special about that unit of energy measurement? Or maybe God says (or whoever), "close enough"?(4 votes)
- The Heisenberg uncertainty principle sets a lower bound on nature's ability to tell the difference between one quantity of energy and another. Anything within that uncertainty band is "the same".(4 votes)
- Can an electron absorb a photon of any energy with an absolute value higher than its energy level (anything that can get it higher than 0 eV)?(4 votes)
- If an electron absorbs a photon with enough energy to increase its potential energy above 0eV, then the electron becomes free and is no longer bound to the atom and the atom then becomes ionized. X-rays and high energy ultraviolet light have enough energy to ionize atoms.(3 votes)
- Top of the morning to ya! Didn't you say that an electron won't absorb more energy than what the energy levels will allow? () So how would an electron at -4ev have the ability to absorb a 7ev photon? ( 4:00) 9:39(2 votes)
- It is true that an electron can only absorb the amount of energy equal to the energy difference between the shells/energy levels. This is assuming that the electron is still bound to the atom in an energy level, an electron that receives enough energy to be freed from the atom is no longer bound to the atom so this rule doesn't apply so long as the energy received is greater than what is required to free the electron it can receive any amount of energy.(3 votes)
- What is eV? Is it the unit of a photon?(1 vote)
- An eV is an Electronvolt. It is a unit of energy approximately equal to 1.6 * 10^(-19) joules.
By definition, An electronvolt is the amount of energy gained (or lost) by the charge of a single electron moving across an electric potential difference of one volt.(4 votes)
Video transcript
- [Instructor] Here's a very
simplified model of an atom. The nucleus at the center of the atom is where the protons and neutrons live, but they're kind of boring, because for the most
part they just sit there. The real star of the show is the electron. The electron gets to do
all the interesting stuff, like move around, jump
around, bind with other atoms. These dashed lines represent
the different energy levels the electron can have while in the atom. We like representing these energy levels with an energy level diagram. The energy level diagram
gives us a way to show what energy the electron
has without having to draw an atom with a bunch of
circles all the time. Let's say our pretend atom
has electron energy levels of zero eV, four eV, six eV, and seven eV. Note that moving left or right
on an energy level diagram doesn't actually represent
anything meaningful, so technically there is no x-axis on an energy level diagram,
but we draw it there anyway because it makes it look nice. All that matters is what energy level or rung on the ladder the electron is at. Note that the electron for
our hypothetical atom here can only exist with zero
eV, four, six, or seven eV. The electron just cannot
exist between energy levels. It's always got to be right
on one of the energy levels. Okay, so let's say our electron starts off on the zero eV energy level. It's good to note that
the lowest energy level an electron can have in an atom
is called the ground state. So how could our electron
get from the ground state to any of the higher energy levels? Well, for the electron to
get to a higher energy level, we've got to give the
electron more energy, and we know how to give
an electron more energy. You just shoot light at it. If a photon of the right
energy can strike an electron, the electron will absorb
all the photon's energy and jump to a higher energy level. The electron in this
ground state needs four eV to jump to the next energy level. That means if a photon that
had an energy of four eV came in and struck the electron, the electron would absorb
the energy of the photon, causing the photon to disappear, and that electron would jump
up to the next energy level. We call the first energy
level after the ground state the first excited state. Once the electron's at
the higher energy level, it won't stay there long. Electrons, if given the
chance, will fall towards the lowest energy level they can. So our electron will fall
back down to the ground state and give up four eV of energy. The way an electron can give up energy is by emitting a photon. So after falling back
down to the ground state, this electron would emit a four eV photon. Electrons don't have to just jump one energy level at a time though. If the electron in our ground state were to absorb a six eV photon, the electron could jump all the way up to the six eV energy level. Now that the electron's
at a higher energy level, it's gonna try to fall back
down, but there's a couple ways it could fall back down in this case. The electron could fall
down to the ground state all in one shot, giving up a
six eV photon in the process, but since the electron started
at the six eV energy level, it could've also fallen first
to the four eV energy level, emitting a two eV photon in the process. It's a two eV photon
because the electron dropped two electron volts in energy, and now that the electron's
at the four eV energy level, it'll fall back down to the ground state, emitting a four eV photon in the process. So electrons will sometimes drop multiple energy levels at a time, and sometimes they'll choose
to take individual steps, but regardless, the energy
of the photon is always equal to the difference in
electron energy levels. What if our electron's in the ground state and we send a five eV photon at it? If the electron were to absorb all of the energy of the five eV photon, it would now have five electron volts, but that's not an allowed energy level, so the electron can't absorb this photon, and the photon will pass
straight through the atom. Keep in mind, the electron in the atom has to absorb all of the
photon's energy or none of it. It can't just absorb part of it. Alright, so now we could figure out every possible photon
this atom could absorb. If the electron's in the ground state, it could absorb a four eV photon, or a six eV photon, or a seven eV photon. If the electron's at
the second energy level, also called the first excited state, the electron could absorb a two eV photon or a three eV photon. And if the electron were
at the third energy level, or the second excited state, the electron could absorb a one eV photon. Those are the only photons that this atom will be seen to absorb. 2.5eV photons will pass straight through, five eV photons will
pass straight through, 6.3eV photons will pas straight through. What this means is that
if you were to shine light that consisted of all possible wavelengths through a gas that was
composed of our pretend atoms, all the wavelengths would
not make it through. Some of the wavelengths
would get absorbed, then scattered away in random directions. This would manifest itself as
dark lines in the spectrum, missing wavelengths or
missing energy levels that correspond to the energies of photons that our electron can absorb. This is like a fingerprint for an atom, and it's called that
atom's absorption spectrum. If you were to ever see this
progression of dark lines in these exact positions, you would know that the gas you were
looking at was composed at least partly of our hypothetical atom. This also allows astronomers to determine what stuff in our universe is made out of, even though we can't get close
enough to collect a sample. All we have to do is collect light from a distant star or quasar that shines through the stuff we're interested in, then just determine which wavelengths or energies got taken out. The details are a little
messier than that, but this provides astronomers with maybe the most important
tool at their disposal. Now the absorption spectrum
are all of the wavelengths or energies that an atom will absorb from light that passes through it. You could also ask about
the emission spectrum. The emission spectrum are
all of the wavelengths or energies that an atom will emit due to electrons falling
down in energy levels. You could go through all the possibilities of an electron falling down again, but you'd realize you're gonna get the exact same energies
for the emission spectrum that you got for the absorption spectrum. So instead of letting
light pass through a gas composed of your hypothetical atoms, let's say you made a container that had the gas of
your hypothetical atoms, and you ran an electric
current through it, exciting those electrons
to higher energy levels and letting them fall back
down to lower energy levels. This is what happens in neon lights, or if you're in science
class it's what happens in gas discharge tubes. So for the emission
spectrum, instead of seeing the whole electromagnetic
spectrum with a few lines missing, you're going to only
see a handful of lines that correspond to the
energies of those photons that that atom will emit. Okay I've gotta be honest about something. If any physicists are watching this video, they're cringing because the energies that electrons will have in
an atom are not positive. The energies an electron
can have in an atom are actually all negative values. This is because the
electron's bound to the atom. Anything that's bound to something else will have total energies
that are negative. This is analogous to a ball
stuck at the bottom of a ditch. If the ball's not moving
it has no kinetic energy, and if we assume that ground level is the H equals zero position,
then this ball's gonna have a negative gravitational potential energy. Since this ball has a
negative total energy, it's stuck and bound to the ditch. If someone could give
this ball enough energy so that it would have
positive total energy, the ball could leave the ditch. It would not be bound anymore. So to make our hypothetical
atom a little more realistic, let's subtract 10eV
from each energy level. This doesn't really change anything. In order for the electron to get from the -10eV ground state to
the -6eV first excited state, it's still gonna take a four eV photon. People do get confused with
the negative signs though, so be careful. In order to find the energy of the photon that was absorbed or emitted, you always take the higher energy level and subtract from it
the lower energy level. So in this case, we would take -6eV, and subtract from it -10eV, which tells us that it would take a four eV photon to bump an electron up
to that energy level, and the electron would
emit a four eV photon if it dropped back down from that level. Something else that's unrealistic about our hypothetical
atom is that real atoms wouldn't just stop at -3eV
for the highest energy level. Real atoms have energy
levels that get closer and closer together as
you approach a zero eV. What happens when an electron
gets more than zero eV energy? Well if an electron has
more than zero energy, that means it's got positive energy. And if it's got positive energy, it's not bound to the atom anymore. It'll be free to leave, it'll be gone, and we'll say that we've ionized the atom by removing an electron. So for example, say the electron started at the -4eV energy level and
it absorbed a seven eV photon, that electron would have a total energy of positive three eV, and so
it would be gone from the atom. (upbeat music)