How can electrons change to other orbits in the atom?
How can electrons change orbits in atoms and what does it have to do with energy?
And how does it even happen? Is something like this only artificially created, or does it also occur naturally in nature?
(3 votes)
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The idea of electrons that circle the atomic nucleus on tracks (or shells) originates from the atomic model of Nils Bohr, which is now considered to be overhauled.
Instead of this, one speaks today of orbitals, in which electrons with a certain probability are maintained – due to the Heisenbergian blur relation, after which it is impossible to determine at the same time location and speed with high accuracy.
However, in order not to further complicate the matter: Whether you are talking about webs, shells or orbitals, each atom tries to achieve as low as possible a low-energy state.
This means that electrons are as close as possible to the atomic nucleus. In order to bring an electron to a higher level, energy must be supplied.
To use an analogy: If you raise a box of lime from the ground and put it on a table, you have also supplied energy and stored as potential energy in the beverage box.
In the atomic range, the electron becomes, from the gravitation the electric field, but the “highlifting” also requires energy.
However, this condition is only of limited duration – the table is unstable, the box falls on the floor. In this case, energy becomes free again and quantum physics can prove that this energy can only be released in defined amounts (quantities).
Energy can be supplied, for example, by electricity or heat – both in nature and by human hand
To name a simple example: flash and neon tube.
Any questions?
Thanks for the detailed and helpful answer
There aren’t really tracks. They stand in the atomic model for different energy states of the electrons. And yes, that happens all the time in nature. When the atom is hit, for example, by a photon with the appropriate amount of energy, it is absorbed and the electron then has a higher energy, i.e. it ‘springs on a higher path’. However, it does not remain there, it jumps back after a short time, and a photon with the corresponding energy is spattered out again.
There are no paths, only quantum states that are stable because they are the states of the Hamiltonoperator of the respective atom whose intrinsic values correspond to the energy of the state.
Electrons have different energy levels, i.e. can absorb energy (e.g. by light quanta) or emit energy. In order to visually imagine these quantum leaps, the model of the different electron paths helps. However, the energy states are not really paths.
In another model, electrons can also behave like waves around the atomic nucleus. These must be completely closed in themselves, i.e. “enbergWelle” and “Wellentäler” cannot meet. Therefore, no intermediate stages are possible in this model with respect to the energy levels.
1. there are no ‘rails’ in atoms.
Two. Quantum mechanics proves that electrons in atoms can only absorb and output a very specific amount of energy (the energy exchange is quantized). Correspondingly, the electrons can also reach only very specific states (by quantum leaps).