What are the shapes of Atomic Orbitals?

Answer 1

An atomic orbital is a mathematical description of the region in which an electron may be found around a single atom.[1] Specifically, atomic orbitals are the possible quantum states of the individual electrons in the electron cloud around a single atom.


Electron atomic and molecular orbitals.Classically, the electrons were thought to orbit the atomic nucleus, much like the planets around the Sun (or more accurately, a moth orbiting very quickly around a lamp). Explaining the behavior of the electrons that "orbit" an atom was one of the driving forces behind the development of quantum mechanics. In quantum mechanics, atomic orbitals are described as wave functions over space, indexed by the n, l, and m quantum numbers of the orbital or by the names as used in electron configurations, as shown on the right. As electrons cannot be described as solid particles (as a planet or a moth) in this way, a more accurate analogy would be that of a huge atmosphere, the spatially distributed electron, around a tiny planet which is the atomic nucleus. Hence the term "orbit" was substituted with something else: orbital.

The orbital names (s, p, d, f, g, h,...) are derived from the quality of their spectroscopic lines: sharp, principal, diffuse and fundamental, the rest being named in alphabetical order. For mnemonic reasons, some call them spherical & peripheral.

Any discussion of the shapes of electron orbitals is necessarily imprecise, because a given electron, regardless of which orbital it occupies, can at any moment be found at any distance from the nucleus and in any direction due to the uncertainty principle.

However, the electron is much more likely to be found in certain regions of the atom than in others. Given this, a boundary surface can be drawn so that the electron has a high probability to be found anywhere within the surface, and all regions outside the surface have low values. The precise placement of the surface is arbitrary, but any reasonably compact determination must follow a pattern specified by the behavior of ψ2, the square of the wavefunction. This boundary surface is what is meant when the "shape" of an orbital is mentioned.

Generally speaking, the number n determines the size and energy of the orbital: as n increases, the size of the orbital increases.

Also in general terms, determines an orbital's shape, and its orientation. However, since some orbitals are described by equations in complex numbers, the shape sometimes depends on also.

The single s-orbitals () are shaped like spheres. For n=1 the sphere is "solid" (it is most dense at the center and fades exponentially outwardly), but for n=2 or more, each single s-orbital is composed of spherically symmetric surfaces which are nested shells (i.e., the "wave-structure" is radial, following a sinusoidal radial component as well). The s-orbitals for all n numbers are the only orbitals with an anti-node (a region of high wave function density) at the center of the nucleus. All other orbitals (p, d, f, etc.) have angular momentum, and thus avoid the nucleus (having a wave node at the nucleus).

The three p-orbitals have the form of two ellipsoids with a point of tangency at the nucleus (sometimes referred to as a dumbbell). The three p-orbitals in each shell are oriented at right angles to each other, as determined by their respective values of .

Four of the five d-orbitals look similar, each with four pear-shaped balls, each ball tangent to two others, and the centers of all four lying in one plane, between a pair of axes. Three of these planes are the xy-, xz-, and yz-planes, and the fourth has the centres on the x and y axes. The fifth and final d-orbital consists of three regions of high probability density: a torus with two pear-shaped regions placed symmetrically on its z axis.

There are seven f-orbitals, each with shapes more complex than those of the d-orbitals.

The shapes of atomic orbitals in one-electron atom are related to 3-dimensional spherical harmonics

Answer 2

P Orbital Shape

Answer 3

Shape Of P Orbital

Answer 4

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s Sublevels are Spherically Shaped The p Orbitals are Often Described as Dumb-bell Shaped The d Orbitals and f Orbitals are Not Easily Visualized Most d orbitals are butterfly shaped, although one has an unusual shape that looks like a doughnut surrounding a Q-tip As for f orbitals, they are even hard to draw, not to mention the fact that there are a total of 7 of them

Answer 5

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What are the shapes of Atomic Orbitals?

Answer 6

Shapes of Atomic Orbitals

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The energies of atomic orbitals also describes their shapes. The shapes are uncertain, but predictions have been made by experimentation. Another difficult task is describing where an electron is. We can think of it as a wave, and describing its exact location is impossible for us to comprehend. Instead, we can think of it as the statistical probability of the electron being found at a particular place. An electron cloud is used for showing the probability of where an electron is using a dot-density diagram. The denser the dots are in the diagram, the more probability that an electron could be found there.
For example, these are dot-density diagrams for the s and p orbitals (cross sections):
s orbital
p orbital
Electron density relates to how much of an electron's charge is packed into a given volume. In dense places on the dot-diagram, there is a high concentration of electrical charge.
An s orbital's shape is spherical, but the p orbital's shape is quite different. They have two lobes extending out into three dimensional space. Since there are 3 p orbitals per energy level, the lobes extend out along the x-axis (px orbital), the y-axis (py orbital), and the z-axis (pz orbital).
px orbital
py orbital
pz orbital
The d orbital's shapes are even more complex because there are 5 orbitals in a d subshell. Four of the five d orbitals (dxy, dxz, dyz, and dx2-y2) have four lobes extending out perpendicular to each other. The last one, dz2, has two lobes extending out along the z-axis with a torus (doughnut-shaped ring) around the center on the x-y plane.
dxy orbital
dxz orbital
dyz orbital
dx2-y2 orbital
dz2 orbital

Answer 7

The shape of s orbital is spherical.
The shape of p orbital is dumbell shape.
The shape of d orbital is double dumbell.
The shape of f orbital is fourfold dumbell.

Answer 8

This is impossible to tell without pictures.

These site will give a variety of views. The last one also has f and g orbitals.

Answer 9

Atomic Orbitals are ellipses...yup, pretty sure that's what they are.

Answer 10

Circle