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The intended learning outcomes from this presentation are to be able
to identify the two atomic models and their differences, describe the
principle components of atomic structure and the electronic structure of
elements using quantum numbers.

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Materials are made out of atoms. The atoms are made of small
particles such as neutrons and electrons that revolve around a nucleus.
The nucleus itself is made of even smaller particles which are the
protons and the neutrons. These particles are very, very small, so you
can see here that the mass of the protons and the neutrons is 1.67 x
10-27 kg and the electrons are even smaller or lighter and their mass is
9.11 x 10-31 kg. The number of protons in the nucleus is equal to the
number of electrons. The electrons are negatively charged and the
protons positively charged. The neutrons have no charge and are
neutral. So the nucleus of the atom is positively charged and the
electrons are negatively charged, but since the number of electrons is
the same as the number of protons, the atom is electrically neutral.

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Now, the atomic number is equal to the number of protons in the
nucleus of an atom. The atomic mass on the other hand will be the
sum of the masses of the protons and the neutrons within the nucleus,
so A will be equal to Z plus N. The atomic weight of an element will be
the weighted average of the atomic masses of the atom’s naturally
occurring isotopes. An isotope is an atom where the number of protons
is different to the number of neutrons.

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The measure for the atomic mass and atomic weight is the atomic
mass unit or AMU, which is 1/12th of the mass of carbon 12, and one
atomic mass unit/atom is equal to one g/mole where 1 mole of a
substance equals 6.023 x 1023 atoms or molecules, and this is known
as the Avogadro Number.

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So, how are the electrons distributed around the nucleus? Late in the
19th Century scientists realised that some of the properties of the
electrons and the behaviour of the electrons could not be explained by
the classic mechanical principle, which led to the development of a new
set of rules and principles called ‘quantum mechanics’. It was the
scientist Niels Bohr who first proposed this model and he stated that
electrons revolve around the nucleus, shown here, in discrete orbitals,
and further, that the position of any particular electron is more or less
defined in terms of an orbital. So the electrons will revolve around the
nucleus, as the planets around the sun. Bohr stated a few important
quantum mechanical principles where the electrons are permitted to
have only specific values of energy. The electron energy is associated
with energy states or energy levels. The electrons can change energy
level but this needs to be associated with the absorption or emission of
energy.

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Later it was discovered that the Bohr model could still not explain all
the behaviour of electrons which led to the development of another
model known as the Wave Mechanical Model. In this model the
position of the electron is not defined by a specific orbital but it is
defined by the probability to find the electron somewhere around the
nucleus. Additionally the position of the electron could be defined by
four quantum numbers.

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Let’s compare both models. For the Bohr model the electron is fixed
here, at a particular distance from the nucleus. By comparison in the
wave mechanical model the electron can be found somewhere here; so
this is the probability to find the electron somewhere here, like the
green dots.

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These quantum numbers are as follows. The principal quantum
number is n which defines the energy level or shell. The designation of
these energy levels are the capital letters K, L, M, N, O. l will be
azimuthal quantum number which will define the electron subshells and
the number of these subshells. The designation of the subshells will be
the small letters s, p, d, f and the number of these subshells will be n,
the principal quantum number, minus 1.
The third quantum number is the magnetic quantum number which
defines the number of energy states in a particular subshell. This
quantum number may have values of -l to +l and will therefore be 1 or
3 or 5 and so on. The final, forth quantum number is the spin of the
electron or the orientation of the electron and this can only have values
of plus ½ or minus ½.

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Let’s consider some models; so the first shell is here and the Bohr
model and the wave mechanical models are roughly the same, so
there is only one energy shell. Then the first shell, the K shell or n the
principal quantum number of 1 will be the lowest energy, so it will be
closest to the nucleus. The second shell will have a higher energy and
according to the Bohr model will be only a single shell, but according to
the wave mechanical model it will have two subshells with 2s and 2p.
Then the third shell will have two subshells in addition to the 3s shell,
the 3p and 3d.

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So let’s consider this from the quantum mechanics perspective. This is
the first quantum number K, the principal quantum number. Now the
subshells, we have n=1 so there are zero subshells, or subshell zero.
Now the spacing on this subshell zero will be defined by the third
quantum number m, which has a value of -l to +l, so that’s zero. Hence,
there is only one orbital or energy state.
As we move to a principal quantum number of 2, the second shell or l
shell, there is one additional subshell. The subshell values can be zero
and 1, the s and p subshells. They are designated as 2s and 2p. The
principal quantum number m will define the energy state, so on the
l=zero subshell there will be only one state, zero. On the subshell
which is designated 1 there will be three energy states or +1, zero and
-1. On the third shell or the m shell we have a principal quantum
number of 3 and so there are three subshells; zero, 1 and 2. These will,
in turn, have 1, 3 and 5 energy states.

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How many orbitals or energy states do we have on the n shell with a
principal quantum number of 4?
There are four subshells of zero, 1, 2 and 3. For these subshells there
is 1 s orbital, 3 p orbitals, 5 d orbitals and 7 f orbitals. So in total there
are 1 plus 3 plus 5 plus 7 orbitals or 16 orbitals.

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What energy states do these shells and subshells have? The first shell
will have lowest energy and subsequent shells will have higher
energies however the differences between these energies will become
smaller as the principle quantum number increases. Beyond n = 3 the
energy levels of the higher level subshells overlap with those of lower
and so the order in which the subshells are filled with electrons
becomes discontinuous. For example, the 4s subshell is filled with
electrons before the 3d subshell.

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How do electrons populate the subshells? Well - the Pauli exclusion
principle says that each energy state can hold only two electrons with
opposite spins. Let’s look at the electronic configuration of iron which
has 26 electrons. These electrons start by occupying the lowest energy
states and continue occupying energy states with increasing energy
until there are no more electrons. Where there are subshells with the
same energy the electrons occupy an unpaired position prior to pairing-
up.

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This table summarises the quantum numbers and shows that for each
shell there are a maximum number of electrons for the shell to be
completely filled. For the first shell this number is 2, for the second 8
and so on. The number of electrons in the outermost shell is very
important since it is these electrons which will participate in chemical
reactions and be involved with any bonding between atoms. These
electrons are known as the valence electrons.

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For example here is the electron configuration of carbon. Carbon has
an atomic number of 6 with 6 electrons – 2 in the 1s subshell which is
the complete 1s level, 2 in the 2s subshell and 2 in the 2p subshell. So,
the 4 electrons of the 2s and 2p subshell are the valence electrons and
carbon has a valence number of 4.

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Diagrammatically we can see here how the subshells are occupied for
carbon. The K-shell is complete and there are 4 electrons in the L-
shell; 2 in the complete 2s subshell and 2 in the partially filled 2p
subshell.

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By comparison potassium has 19 electrons. We can see these
diagrammatically with the lone valence electron in the 4s subshell.

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If we look at a table of the elements and their electronic configurations
we can see that most are unstable since they do not have a filled
outermost shell. The elements helium, neon, argon and krypton
outlined in blue are stable as they all have completely filled shells.
These then are known as the inert gases as they are unlikely to
participate in chemical reactions. The other elements all have unfilled
outermost shells and undergo chemical reactions in order to gain a
filled outermost shell.

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In summary there are two models describing the atomic structure of
materials. Whilst, the models differ in their description of electrons and
electronic structure they both agree that electrons can only have
specific energies. The wave-mechanical model describes the electronic
structure of an atom using quantum numbers to identify a specific
electron.

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If you have any questions or desire further clarification please post a
question or comment on the Engineering Materials Discussion Forum.

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