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Sir ,Can you explain the highlighted line in figure.

Sir ,Can you explain the highlighted line in figure.
 

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Grade:11

1 Answers

Aarti Gupta
askIITians Faculty 300 Points
9 years ago
According to Molecular orbital theory an electron in an atom is described by wave function \Psi(psi),which is a solution of Schrodinger wave equation.When two atoms A and B which have atomic orbitals described by wave functions \PsiA and \PsiB approach each other,their electron clouds will overlap,then the wave function for the molecule(\PsiAB ) can be obtained by a linear combination of the atomic orbitals:-
\PsiAB = N(\PsiA + \PsiB)
where,N is a normalizing constant chosen to ensure that the probability of finding an e- in the whole space is unity.Combination of pair of atomic orbitals \PsiA and \PsiB,give rise to a pair of molecular orbitals \Psig and \Psiu.The number of molecular orbitals produced are equal to the number of atomic orbitals involved.The function \Psig leads to increased electron density in between the nuclei,and is therefore a bonding molecular orbital.It is lower in energy than the original atomic orbitals.Conversely \Psiu results in two lobes of opposite signs cancelling and hence giving zero electron density in between the nuclei which creates a node between the nuclei.This is an anti-bonding molecular orbital which is higher in energy.Thus node creates describes that the probability of finding the electron is zero there.Such a node is absent in case of bonding molecular orbital as electron density is not zero ,in fact it increases between the nuclei.

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