Electronics

1st Year Students

Lecture 1

Presented By
Mohanad Ghazi
Computer Engineering Department
2020 - 2021
Atomic Structure
The atom is the basic unit of matter that consists of a central nucleus surrounded by
a number of negatively charged electrons. The nucleus contains both positively
charged protons and neutral neutrons as shown in the figure below to the right. The electrons of an
atom are connected to the nucleus by the electromagnetic force. An atom containing an equal
number of protons and electrons is neutral, otherwise it is positively or negatively charged, and it is
known as an ion.

Over 99% of an atom mass is in the nucleus, with protons

and neutrons having approximately equal mass.
Electrons have a set of stable energy levels called orbitals,
where they can have transitions between them by
absorbing or emitting photons that match the energy
difference between the levels.

Mass of Proton ₌ 1.67 x 10-22 kg ≈ Mass of Neutron

Mass of Electron ₌ 9.1 x 10-31 kg
Charge of Electron ₌ 1.6 x 10-19 Coulomb
Protons: Electrically positive (+ve)
Neutron: Electrically Neutral
Electrons: Electrically negative (-ve)

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Atomic Structure
Nucleus Charge à since the nucleus contains the protons that have +ve
charge and the neutrons that have neutral charge, then we can say that the
Nucleus has a +ve charge.

Atomic Mass Number à since the sum of neutrons and protons in the
nucleus of the atom is over 99% of the atom, then we can say the Atomic
Mass Number (A) of an element is equal to the sum of neutrons and protons
in its nucleus as shown in the figure to the right.

Atomic Mass No. (A) = No. of Protons + No. of Neutrons

Element Characteristic à the element is classified according to the number

of protons, neutrons, and electrons in its atom as bellow:
Ø Number of protons determines the chemical properties of the element.
Ø Number of electrons determines the magnetic properties of the element.
Ø Number of neutrons determines the isotopes of the element.

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Atomic Structure
Isotopes are variants of a particular chemical element which
differ in neutrons number, although all isotopes of a given
element have the same number of protons in each atom. For
example, carbon-12, carbon-13 and carbon-14 are three
isotopes of the carbon with mass numbers 12, 13 and 14
respectively. The atomic number of Carbon is 6, which means
that every carbon atom has 6 protons, and the neutron
numbers of these isotopes are 6, 7 and 8 respectively.

Z = Atomic Number = No. of Protons = No. of Electrons (only in

case of neutral atom)
A = Mass number = No. of Protons and neutrons ≈ Atomic
Weight
No. of Neutrons = A – Z

Example:
Determine the number of protons, electrons, neutrons, atomic no., and atomic weight of the Argon
element (18Ar40) assuming it’s neutral.

Sol: from above isotope symbol, we can find the following:

Atomic Weight (A) = 40 = Z + No. of Neutrons, Atomic Number (Z)= 18
So: No. of Protons = 18
No. of Electrons = 18 (Since it’s neutral)
No. of Neutrons = A – Z = 40 – 18 = 22
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Atomic Models
1- Thomson Model:
Several scientists as (William Prout) and (Norman Lockyer),
had suggested that atoms were built up from a more
fundamental unit, but they thought this unit to be the size of
the smallest atom. Thomson, in 1897, was the first to
suggest that the fundamental unit was over 1000 times
smaller than an atom, suggesting the subatomic particles
now known as electrons.
In this model, the atom is composed of electrons in a cloud
of positive charge to balance the electrons negative
charges as shown below.

Thomson

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Atomic Models
2- Rutherford Model
In 1911 Rutherford presented his own physical model for
subatomic structure in which the atom is made up of a
central charge surrounded by a cloud of orbiting electrons.
Rutherford suggested that the central charge of an atom
might be "proportional" to its atomic mass. After
Rutherford's discovery, scientists started to realize that the
atom is not ultimately a single particle, but is made up of far
smaller subatomic particles.

Rutherford mentioned that the electrons rotates around the

nucleus so that the attraction force of the nucleus is
Rutherford
balanced by the centrifugal force of the electrons motion.

Rutherford also mentioned that an accelerating electron

radiates an electromagnetic energy. Hence, the electrons
shall radiates continuously resulting in a continuous loss in
the energy of the electrons which will allow the electrostatic
attraction of the nucleus to overcome the centrifugal force
of the electrons motion. Eventually the electron will strike
the nucleus which will make the nucleus not stable.

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Atomic Models
3- Bohr Model

In 1913 Bohr proposed his quantized shell model of the atom to explain how electrons
can have stable orbits around the nucleus. Bohr modified the Rutherford model by
requiring that the electrons move in orbits of fixed size and energy. The energy of an
electron depends on the size of the orbit and is lower for smaller orbits. Radiation can
occur only when the electron jumps from one far orbit to another near orbit from the
center of the atom.
Bohr proposed that electrons are restricted to certain fixed (quantized) orbits. An
electron can jump between these orbits by absorbing or emitting a photon with the
appropriate wavelength.
For example, if an electron jumps one orbit closer to the nucleus, it must emit energy
equal to the difference of the energies of the two orbits. Similarly, when the electron
jumps to a larger orbit, it must absorb a photon equal in energy to the difference in
orbits.

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 Atomic Models
Bohr began with an approach that assumes that the electron in a one-electron atom is moving in a circular
orbit with a radius of (r) from the nucleus.

The movement of an electron in its orbit would create a centrifugal

force, which gives it a tendency to fly away from the nucleus. This force
is given by:

Fcentrifugal = mv2/r FElectro

magnetic

where (m) is the mass of the electron, and (v) is its velocity. In order to
have a stable atom, it was assumed that this centrifugal force was
exactly matched by an opposing centripetal force, drawing the electron
inward through the electromagnetic attraction between the electron’s
negative charge and the positive charge in the nucleus.
This electromagnetic force of attraction is given by:

F electromagnetic = Ze2/r2
Equating these two forces, we have:

Where: m = Mass of electron

v = Velocity of electron
e = charge of electron
r = orbit radius
Z = 1/4 π €o
€o = electrostatic permittivity = 8.85 x 10 -12 F/m 8
Atomic Models
From equation 1, we can obtain:
m v2 = Z e2 / r > Equ. 2
Hence:

v = Z e2 / r m
The derivation of the energy equation starts with the assumption that the electron in its orbit has both kinetic energy (K)
and potential energy (U), E = K + U, where (K) that arises from electron motion, is:

K = (½) m v2

The (U) that arises from the attraction between the negative charge of the electron and the positive charge in the
nucleus, is given by:
U = – Z e2 / r.
The (-) sign in the above equation signifies that the force on the electron is in the –r direction (toward the nucleus).

Hence, the total energy can be given as the summation of both kinetic and potential energies:

ET = (½) m v2 – Z e2 / r > Equ. 3

By substituting equ.2 in equ.3, we can get:

> Equ. 4

By experiments on hydrogen atom, it is found that 13.6 e.v. is required to separate the atom into protons and electron.
So, we can say that for the hydrogen atom, The binding energy is 13.6 e.v.

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 Atomic Models
4- Planck’s Model

Before explaining Planck’s model, it should be known that a

blackbody is an object that absorbs all the radiation falling on it. An
object that absorbs all the radiation can also emit all radiation, where
a blackbody will radiate maximum energy when heated to a given
temperature. Under classical physics, this energy emitted was
predicted to be infinite. However, when it did not radiate energy
forever, scientists were faced with the problem of explaining the
phenomenon. This led to Planck’s idea that unlike classical physics,
quantum physics limits energy to a set of specific values. Each of
these values is not continuous but rather increases from one
allowed value to another by a small quantum jump. A quantum is
the smallest bit of electromagnetic radiation that can be emitted.
Planck developed a model that came to be known as Planck’s
equation, which includes a constant that is called “Planck’s
constant”:
h = 6.62607 x 10-34 J s
Using this constant he was able to correct the previous theory by
stating that energy is directly proportional to frequency as shown
bellow:
E=hf
where (E) is energy (J), (h) is Planck’s constant (J. Sec), and (f) is
frequency (Hz). In the above equation, as the frequency of radiation
increases, its energy increases, where only certain energy levels are 10
allowed.
Atomic Models
Some related definitions

Ground State: It is the state in which the electron rotate in its initial orbit.

Excited State: it is the state when the electron is excited to a higher energy level (through absorbing a photon for
example).

emission Energy: it is the amount of energy that is being emitted by the electron when it returns from the excited state
to the steady state.

Photon: A photon is a mass of energy associated with light. A photon has energy (E) that is proportional to the
frequency (f) of radiation.

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