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Calculated electronic state of the excited electron of a silicon nanocrystal
A model of the calculated electronic state of the excited electron of a silicon nanocrystal.
The orbits electrons use to travel around the nucleus of an atom are complicated in shape. Each orbit can hold no more than two electrons. When atoms come together to form a molecule like this silicon nanocrystal, the electrons that previously were orbiting each atom now travel throughout the entire molecular structure, getting close to multiple atoms and forming even more complicated shapes. The blue and yellow shapes here are like clouds within which an electron could be found. The plot shows where the two most energetic electrons of the silicon nanocrystal orbit.
[Research supported by U.S. National Science Foundation grants DMR 0102668 and DMR 0121361.] (Year of image: 2002)
Credit: Zack Helms/Quantum Simulations Laboratory, North Carolina State University; simulations completed using computational resources provided by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications
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