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Chemistry Forums for Students => High School Chemistry Forum => Topic started by: lateralus01 on January 09, 2008, 11:57:37 PM

Title: Just a little more vocab...
Post by: lateralus01 on January 09, 2008, 11:57:37 PM

What is a sublevel?  I think it is a part of an orbital.  Like if you look at the d orbital it's two dumbells that are perpendicular to eachother.  So would on sublevel be one dumbell or am i just way off here?

Title: Re: Just a little more vocab...
Post by: Alpha-Omega on January 10, 2008, 12:06:03 AM

There are 5 orbitals that are labeled to designate a specific gemetric orientation.  Each of these is a sublevel of the entire orbital.

This link is extremely good; and, shows all the geometries in a table...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D_orbitals

Each sublevel defines the shape of the orbital where the electrons reside. The farther away from the nucleus an electron gets, the more possible shapes the orbital has

There is 1 sublevel in an S orbital.  There are 3 sublevels in a P orbital (look at the subscripts in the post SEV made)  those are designations for sublevels Px, Py, Pz-There are 5 sublevels in a d orbital.  This link shows all the orbitals and their sublevels. 

http://www.kentchemistry.com/links/AtomicStructure/Sublevels.htm

http://www.kentchemistry.com/links/AtomicStructure/Sublevels.htm