Nodal Planes

[Rohita Thammineni 2D]

Hi! Can someone explain how nodal planes come about? I know they're areas in an orbital with no electron density, but how exactly are these nodal planes positioned and why do they exist in the first place? Do different subshells have different numbers of nodal planes?

[Yuzhe Yuan]

Hi,

The probability density of the electron (the shape of the orbitals) is calculated from the Schrodinger Function. s orbitals don't have nodal planes, p, d, f orbitals have different numbers of nodal planes.

[Darren Apostol 2L]

Schrodinger's wave equation allows us to solve for the wave functions of electrons which describe their wave-like nature. Waves, standing waves in particular, have things called "nodes" which have zero amplitude. The square of a wave function (which gives amplitude) is proportional to the probability of finding the particle, but if amplitude is zero, probability is zero. Nodal planes reflect this, hence the "node" in their name.

[Samantha Melin 2E]

Can we use nodal planes to describe the wavelike nature of an electron?

[Daryl Gall 1E]

I believe nodal planes exist because of the wavelike nature of electrons (as seen using Schrodinger's wave equation). Therefore, I would think these two variables go hand in hand, and each could be used to describe the other.