Polarizability

[Archana Biju 1G]

What are the trends we would use to order the anions Cl^-, Br^-, N^3-, and O^2- in order of increasing polarizability?

[Kayla Vo 1B]

In general on the periodic table, polarizability decreases across a period (due to increasing effective nuclear charge) and increases down on a group (due to atomic size increasing which allows for electron clouds to distort more easily).

[Cole Elsner 2J]

The trend in polarizability is similar to the trend of atomic radii. Decreases to the right and increases down the periodic table.

[Aleeque Marselian 1A]

The trend for polarizability is the same as the trend for atomic radii. Therefore it generally decreases when moving left to right on a period and increases when going down a group.

[Kelsey Warren 1I]

Polarizability increases as electronegativity decreases and as atomic radius increases. Therefore, polarizability increases right to left and top to bottom.

[EllaBerry]

Polarizability relates to atomic radius because the larger the radius, the easier it is to distort electrons because they are farther away from the nucleus. Therefore the larger the atom, the higher the polarizability.