Atomic structure

Rheneilwe Andries Sekhala (Mr);

MSc(UZ), BSc (UZ)
Email: [email protected]
Cell: +263 773 255 259
Office No. 10 New Wing; Department of
Space Science and Applied Physics ;
outline
1. Rutherford’s alpha scattering experiment
2. Atomic line spectrum
3. Bohr’s model
4. Sommerfeld’s model
Alpha scattering exp
Postulates
1. Positive charge is concentrated at the
nucleus
2. The interior mass of the atom is due to
the nucleus
Planetory model
 Rutherford postulated that like solar
system, electrons revolve around the
nucleus in circular obits
 The centripetal force required for the
circular motion is obtained from the
electrostatic attraction of the nucleus on
the electrons
 The equation of motion of the electrons is
Scattering exp
 The kinetic energy of the electron is

 The total energy is E = K +U

+ - = - the negative total energy means
that the electrons in the atom are bound to
the nucleus
The electron is accelerated hence according
to electrodynamics an accelerated charge
must radiate energy in the form of
electromagnetic waves
Scattering exp
 The rate at which an electron of charge e
and moving with acceleration a radiates
electromagnetic energy is given by:
P = but a hence
P=
Atomic line spectrum
 A substance is transformed into gaseous state
 The electrons are excited by an electric discharge
 Emitted light contained certain wavelength
 Emitted light pass through a fine rectangular
aperture called slit and then through a dispersive
device such as a prism or diffraction grating
 the emergent radiation is recorded on the
photographic film
 The various wavelength in the light appear as well
defined fine lines which are images of the slit
 These lines taken together constitute line spectrum
 It is a characteristic of an element
Line spectrum
The lines are denoted by wave number which
is a reciprocal of wavelength
The Balmer formular is
) where R is the Rydberg constant
Spectral series
Lymann series: ultraviolet region:
)
Balmer series: visible region
)
Paschen series: Infra red region
)
Bracket series: infrared region
)
Bohr’s model
Postulates
1. Electron in the hydrogen atom moves in a circular orbit
around the nucleus. The dynamics is governed by
Newtonian mechanics
(1)
2. In contrast with the classical physics where the radius of
the electronic orbit can assume any magnitude, Bohr
asserted that only those orbits are allowed in which the
angular momentum of electrons is integral multiple of ħ
(2)
N is the integer called principle quantum number
3. Electrons only radiate energy when moving from
stationary energy level to a higher energy level
(3)
Radius of the orbit
Eliminating from Eqns 1and 3 and solving
the resulting equation for r , we have
r = (4)
For hydrogen atom Z = 1, the radius of the
first orbit (n = 1), called Bohr orbit (a) comes
out to be r = = so the radius of the n orbit
is given by
Rotational frequency of
electrons
Eliminating r from equation 1 and 3 we get
= =
Linear velocity of electrons

The ratio of the velocity of the electron in the

first orbit of the hydrogen atom to the speed
of light is called the fine structure constant,α
Energy
=( -13.6eV
By re arranging

Where R= = Rydberg constant

Frequency of emitted
radiation
If an electron make transition from an orbit of
quantum number to an obit of quantum
number the frequency with the emitted
radiation is given by
)
λ=R)
Reduced mass
 in the development of Bohr’s theory the nucleus
of the atom was assumed to stationary.
 In fact, the motion of electron and nucleus under
their mutual interaction is a two body problem.
 In hydrogen atom both the nucleus and the
electron rotate with the same angular velocity,
say about an axis passing through their center of
mass and perpendicular to the line joining them.
 Let r be distance between the nucleus and the
electron and r1 and r2 be their distances from the
center of mass. If M and m are the masses of the
nucleus and the electron then
Reduced mass

So

The angular momentum of the system

becomes
L=
the system
Energy level diagram
Franck – Hertz experiment
 Provide strong and inclusive evidence in support of
the existence of discrete energy states of atoms
 On heating the filament electrons are emitted
thermionically
 They are accelerated towards the anode
 They pass through the grid , the retarding potential
prevent them from reaching the plate
 Electrons with small kinetic energy will not be able to
reach the anode
 An ammeter measures current that due to the
electrons that reach the plate
 When the accelerating voltage increases the current
also increase
Franck-Hertz exp
 For a particular value of V the current drops
and then increase again with increase in
voltage
 At another certain voltage the current
drops again
 It is observed that current drops at regular
intervals of accelerating voltage
Franck-Hertz exp
Interpretation
 When the accelerating voltage increases from zero
the kinetic energy of electrons increases and
therefore the electrons reach the anode overcoming
the retarding potential
 When V=4.9V the electrons has kinetic energy
equal to 4.9eV and on reaching the grid they suffer
inelastic collision with mercury atoms and lose most
of the energy and fail to reach the anode
 This explains the drop
 During collision with mercury atoms the electrons
are raised to the excited state
 This repeats until the results shows on graph are
produced
Sommerfeld model
 Spectrographs of higher resolving power revealed that
the spectral lines which were thought to be single,
actually consisted of a group of lines very close
together.
 This means that the energy levels corresponding to a
principal quantum number possess fine structure i.e.,
the energy level consists of a number of energy levels
lying very close together
 The Planck’s quantum condition for a harmonic
oscillator: energy of a harmonic oscillator is integral
multiple of and Bohr’s condition: angular momentum
of an electron moving in circular orbit is integral
multiple of are the particular cases of this general
quantum condition
Sommerfeld model
 For a harmonic oscillator with momentum p
and position q, the Wilson-Sommerfeld
quantum condition states that

If we plot the values of p and q on a p-q

plane for one cycle we get an ellipse
Sommerfeld model
 Each point on the ellipse represents some
state of the oscillator.
 Such a two-dimensional space with
position and momentum as its axes is
called phase space.
 As the oscillator completes its one cycle, its
representative point completes ellipse in
phase space.
 The actual motion of the oscillator should
not be confused with the motion of its
representative point in phase space.
Good day. Thank you