Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Orbital Name Abbrevation

The orbital names s, p, d, and f stand for names given to groups of lines in the spectra of the alkali metals. These line groups are called "sharp, principal, diffuse, and fundamental".
The orbital letters are associated with the angular momentum quantum number, which is assigned an integer value from 0 to 3. s correlates to 0, p = 1, d = 2, and f = 3.The angular momentum quantum number can be used to give the shapes of the electronic orbitals. s orbitals are spherical; p orbitals are polar. It may be simpler to think of these two letters in terms of orbital shapes (d and f aren't described as readily).

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