Electron Configuration

[JaylinWangDis1L]

Hi, can someone explain the concept of electron configuration (like excited and ground state) in relatively specific terms? I'm still confused on how to determine the ground state from the excited state

[Catie Donohue 2K]

I'm not sure if he's covered this yet because I didn't hear anything about it in the lectures, but to answer the Sapling homework I assumed that the excited state of an electron was one that did not follow the normal pattern of filling up the s, p, and d orbitals as you would typically expect.

For example, it showed that the excited state electron configuration was 1s^2 2s^2 2p^0 3s^1. Since a ground state electron configuration would mean that the orbitals (s,p,d etc) within each shell (n=1, n=2, etc) are filled before moving on to the next shell, this can be assumed to be the excited state and the ground state would be 1s^2 2s^2 2p^1 (without the electron jumping to the n=3 shell before the p orbitals are filled).

[Can Yilgor 2D]

The ground state of a quantum mechanics system refers to its lowest energy state (most stable electron arrangement). An excited state is any state with energy greater than the ground state. For example, an oxygen at the ground state has the electron configuration 1s^2 2s^2 2p^4. This is the most stable arrangement of electrons (the lowest energy state). If the element were to become excited, a valence electron could be promoted to a higher energy level, leading to the new configuration 1s^2 2s^2 2p^3 3s^1.

Hope that helps

[Mrudula Akkinepally]

I was a little confused too when I saw the question on the Sapling homework. How I went about it was to think about how an excited electron would be in the highest energy shell. So if it were to go to its ground state, that electron would come back down and lose the highest energy shell. Then I looked at my periodic table and looked at which element had that electron configuration. This gave me my answer. I don't know if that answered your question but I hope that helps.