Nodal Planes

[Madelyn Romberg 1H]

Can someone explain the concept of nodal planes and their relationship to orbital shapes.

[Chem_Mod]

A nodal plane is an area with 0 chance of finding an electron. For example, in the image below, you can see that the nodal plane is the plane where you wouldn't expect to find an electron. Using what we know about the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, a p-orbital at x=0 has a node in between its two lobes, where, and since height at x=0 is 0, Ψ=0, and Ψ²=0, confirming the probability of an electron existing there being 0.