page is designed to allow you to manipulate images of atomic
and compare multiple orbitals by displaying them simultaneously
atom. The goal is to help you visualize atomic orbitals
and their relative sizes. For more information about
interpretation of orbitals and the quantum mechanical model
some of the links to other web sites below and your class text.
the left in the table below (you may need to scroll down) is a
with a green dot in it.
dot represents the location of a chlorine nucleus (significantly
enlarged so that you can see it). On the right hand side
pull-down menus from which you can choose an orbital to
The electronic configuration of a ground state
chlorine is [Ne]3s2
means that the 4s, 3d and 4p orbitals shown are
thus their extent and energy are somewhat different than would
for orbitals with electrons in them. The orbitals
the pull-down menus from lowest (at top) to highest (at bottom)
on interpreting the images
on using the
how the images were generated
| Other web sites with
interpreting the images:
If your browser supports Java Applets you will get better performance by using Java.
NB: Safari is very slow and IE behaves unpredictably; use Chrome or FireFox.
for using Jmol to display
- Choose which orbitals to display by selecting them
orbital popup menus. You can control orbital
color and fill mode
by selecting the appropriate options following each
- ROTATE the image by
down the mouse button while moving the cursor over
- ZOOM by holding down the shift key while moving
(decrease magnification) or down (increase
magnification) on top of the
- Other options are available in the control menu
the mouse button down while the cursor is over
"Jmol" in the lower
right corner (right click also works on a
- For more info about Jmol go to www.jmol.org.
1) Each orbital
represented by two colors. One color is for where the
wavefunction takes on positive values and one color for negative
values. 2) Each time the color changes you are crossing a
where electrons in that particular orbital have zero probability
being found. 3) The surfaces represent the surface in
the wavefunction has a particular magnitude. To one side
surface the wavefunction has a lesser magnitude and to the other
a greater magnitude. Thus the surfaces provide you with an
of the shape and extent of the orbitals.
recommendations on using the
1) By default the orbital surfaces are
as solid. When looking at more than one orbital
is usually better to switch to the mesh display so that you can
through the intersecting surfaces. 2) Zoom in and
These orbitals vary greatly in size.
images were generated:
These orbital images are based
package and MacMolPlt
These images are generated on the fly by JSmol/Jmol from
file of a single point energy calculation on a ground state Cl
level of theory.
Other web sites
*Mark Winter's Orbitron
from Sheffield University in England has very pretty
*R. Spinney's pages on Hydrogen Atomic
Orbitals have a more complete discussion of atomic orbitals and
accessed as a link from Dr.
World of Chemistry Site
- M.W.Schmidt, K.K.Baldridge, J.A.Boatz, S.T.Elbert,
J.H.Jensen, S.Koseki, N.Matsunaga, K.A.Nguyen, S.Su,
M.Dupuis, J.A.Montgomery J. Comput. Chem., 14,
- Bode, B. M. and Gordon, M. S. J.
Mol. Graphics Mod., 16, 1998,
Copyright J. Gutow 2006
Last Update: August 30, 2013