Do electrons actually accept/emit a *range* of energies of photons, or is it a limitation of the detecting instrument itself that makes the lines thick enough to see? Thank you.
In: 7
By thin, I assume you mean on a spectrometer, because remember that they are real photon hitting your retina, and it’s not like trying to find a hair on the ground. There’s 2 reasons, when the light hits the spectrometer and gets separated into its principle wavelengths, diffusion occurs, making the line appear thicker, but can also blend in with a line adjacent to it. The second reason is that the line is only infinitesimally thin when you are working with a single atom. Once you put several atoms next to each other, the exact number for energy changes between orbitals (which is the same energy for photons that will be emitted, determining their color) can get pushed up or down, so you end up with a bell curve of emissions centered on the exact value. This is because the atoms exert forces on each other, and push each other’s orbitals around. See energy bands for more information (this is how we get insulators, conductors, and semiconductors)
Latest Answers