Hello students, my name is Nikola, and I will be your Chegg teacher for today.

I today's lesson we will be

talking about electrons.

Electrons are one of three main subatomic particles that build atoms. These subatomic particles. beside
electrons, are protons and neutrons. So, lets talk about electrons, what is their structure, why are they
important, what is their role in the matter itself...

In the atom, electrons present negatively charged particles. They are designated as e- with the minus
representing negative charge. This negative charge is said ti be unit of charge, with the value of 1.6x10-
19 coulons (C). Since electrons are particles, they should have certain mass and size, right? Well this is a
bit tricky question since measuring size and mass of such a small particle is pretty difficult and carries a
lot of chance for mistake. However, most of the scientist agree that mass of electron is a 9.1x10-31 kg.
Comparing this mass to the mass of protons or neutrons, we can say that this is negligible mass since
electron is a 1836 times lighter that proton or neutron. This is why atomic mass of an element is
calculated using proton neutrons only with electrons being removed from the calculations.

From the aspect of structure and localisation, we can say that electrons don’t have internal structure like
an atom, while their localisation in the atom on the other hand is pretty interesting. In the atom,
electrons are located in the electron cloud, a space around nucleus which is made of protons and
neutrons. In this electron cloud, electrons are able to more-or-less freely move. What does this mean??
Either they are free or not? Well, since electron cloud around the nucleus is made of certain number of
energy shells also known as level, and every shell is made of one or more energy subshells, electrons
placed in the certain energy subshell and shell can move freely only in their borders. These areas in
which electrons can move are called orbitals and can have different size, shape and space orientation,
depending on the specidic energy shell and subshell. Important thing to mention is that we cannot know
the exact position of an electron in the atom, which is exactly why we use orbitals to describe the most
possible areas around the nucleus in which electrons can be found. If we take a closer look to the
electons placed in different shells, we can see that shells closer to the nucleus, called inner shelles have
electrons with the lower energy, compared to the electrons of the outer shells. As we move further from
the nucleus, electrons are less and less bound to the positive core by the Coulombous force, and
therefore can move more freely or even left the atom in some cases!

If electron placed in the outer shell receives a sufficient amount of energy, known as ionisation energy,
this electron can be removed from the electro-neutral atom, generation positively charged ion called
cation. In the opposite case, if electron is inserted in the outer shell of the atom, negative ions, called
anions are generated.

From the aspect of their role in matter, electrons are extremely important. Chemical bonds, covalent
and ionic are made because of the attraction forces between electrons and nucleii of different elements.
Also, electrons are the ones responsible for the conductivity of electricity in case of metals. Lets imagine
our metalic conductor as a gruopation of metal atoms. Since electrons in the outer shells (so called
valence electrons) of these atoms are relatively far away from the nucleus, they can easily detached
from the nucleus and move freely among the atoms of the metal. Now, these electrons are called
delocalised electrons since they do not belong to a particular atom, but are widely shared among
differend atoms. Therefore, we can also say that in the conductor we now have positive cations and so
called sea of delocalised electrons.
If we place our conductor in the electric field, generated by the battery, electiric current in the
conductor fill flow from the direction of the positive area into the negative area. This flow is based on
the moving delocalised electrons which practically move in the so called conductivity band of the
conductor’s atom. This conductivity band is a usually presented by the higher, unocupied orbitals which
are ready to accept moving electrons and practically act as a highway for electrons. In case of metals,
conductivity band is close, often overlaping with the valence band in which the outer shell, valence
electrons.

In case of semiconductors, all of the valence electrons are firmly used in creation of bonds between the
atoms of semiconductors. Lets take germanium for example. All of its valence electrons are used to bind
atom of germanium among themselves. In case of germanium, conductivity of electricity is based on two
things:

1. Existence of freely moving electrons upon their excitation and breaking of the covalent bond
between two germanium atoms and,
2. Existence of holes which are able to accept new electron from the neighbouring bond of
electrons.
Based on this we can say that holes and electrons moving in oposite direction, electricity is conducted.
As you can see, semiconducotors create their own holes for moving of electrons, while metals naturally
are abundatn in space in form of higher orbitals for moving of electrons.

Interesting think concernig electrons is their speed. As we have already said, they move around the
nucleus, bu the questio is how fast? Well, pretty fast. The speed of electron around the nucleus is
around 2200km per second! This is enough to go around the world in 18 second, but comparing to the
speed of light, this is less 1% of it which makes electrons look rather slow...

But, if electron are so small, how to we know they even exist. Well, their existence is discovered by the
english physicist Joseph John Thompson back in 1897. He was using Crooks tube, a glassy tube with
vacuum inside. When he applied negative charge to the one side of the tube, electrons were striped
from the remaining gas molecules and rushed to the opposite, positive side of the tube. Upon hitting the
opposite side of the tube, green light was created. The final proof that these was particles rather than
just a light was ability to steer to electron beam using magnets and electrical fields.

It is something like yard which is closed. Electrons can move freely in the yard, but cannot exit the yard
on they free „will“.