(c) Dr Paul Kinsler. [Acknowledgements & Feedback]

This is part of an information maze -- see the index-file for the full picture.

Atoms

Atoms consist of a dense core of protons and neutrons which are surrounded by a diffuse cloud of electrons. The most obvious properties of atoms are determined by the number of protons and electrons they have. The number of neutrons does have some effect, but these are less significant, except in that the neutrons increase the amount strong-force present -- and this is what stops the positive electric-charge protons flying apart and breaking up the atomic nucleus.

The usual picture of an atom is like a miniature solar system with electrons orbiting the nucleus like planets orbit the sun. However, quantum-mechanics tells us that everything has wave -like properties, and this means that the orbits are into three dimensional wave-functions surrounding the nucleus. Each wave-function can be thought of as a single electron spread out into a cloud. These clouds have a fixed "ladder" of rungs, each higher rung corresponding to a higher energy. Each rung further up the ladder has space for a different (and increasing) number of electrons, with higher rungs representing electron clouds with higher energy. Also, higher rungs corresponds to electron clouds that are on average further from the nucleus. Usually the electrons prefer to congregate as low down the ladder as possible.

        |=========|
        |---- ----|
        |         |
        |---- ----|
        |         |
        |         |
        |   - -   |
        |         |
  
        An _atomic _energy ladder, with space on higher
        rungs for more _electrons, and with decreasing 
        gaps between the rungs.

Atoms can stick together to form molecules or solids, or combine loosely to form liquids or gases.

If you isolate an atom in an atom-trap, you could use specific quantum-mechanical states to make a qbit - the quantum counterpart to a bit which is used in a quantum-computer.

20011228 1206 19961128 (c) Paul Kinsler

XINDEX: wave, strong-force, spin, solid, semiconductor, quantum-dot, quantum-confine, quantum-computer, phonon, mass, liquid, gas, fermion, energy, index-file.

XKEYWORD: atom

Email Feedback: Dr.Paul.Kinsler@physics.org

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