The lowest energy state an atom can be at is called its ground state. When an electron in an atom has absorbed energy it is said to be in an excited state. An excited atom is unstable and tends to rearrange itself to return to its lowest energy state….What it is:

Number of electrons per sublevel

The electron can gain the energy it needs by absorbing light. If the electron jumps from the second energy level down to the first energy level, it must give off some energy by emitting light. The atom absorbs or emits light in discrete packets called photons, and each photon has a definite energy.

An easy way to determine if the electron is in the excited state is to compare it to its ground state. If you see electrons have been “moved” to a higher orbital before filling the lower orbital, then that atom is in an excited state.

When the electron changes levels, it decreases energy and the atom emits photons. The photon is emitted with the electron moving from a higher energy level to a lower energy level. The energy of the photon is the exact energy that is lost by the electron moving to its lower energy level.

electrons get their energy “TO MOVE” from where else, VIA or from their energy source field.

Energy levels (also called electron shells) are fixed distances from the nucleus of an atom where electrons may be found. As you go farther from the nucleus, electrons at higher energy levels have more energy. The maximum number of electrons at a given energy level depends on its number of orbitals.

Every time an electron changes its orbit, from a higher energy one to a lower energy one, it gives off a photon of light whose energy is the difference in the energy between the two states. Such a process, that of moving from one energy level to another is called a quantum leap, or quantum jump.

The higher the excitation state, the more energy the electron contains. When an electron absorbs energy, it jumps to a higher orbital. An electron in an excited state can release energy and ‘fall’ to a lower state. When it does, the electron releases a photon of electromagnetic energy.

Electrons that occur together in an orbital are called an electron pair. An electron will always try to enter the orbital with the lowest energy. In other words, within one energy level, electrons will fill an s orbital before starting to fill p orbitals. The s subshell can hold 2 electrons.

Energy of Electrons in Atomic Orbitals The central structure of an atom is the nucleus, which contains protons and neutrons. This nucleus is surrounded by electrons. Although these electrons all have the same charge and the same mass, each electron in an atom has a different amount of energy.

4. If only ½ the energy necessary to go between the 1s and 2s orbital was available, will an electron go to the 2s orbital? No. You still need to fill up each orbital with at most 2 before moving up to another.

Pauli’s Exclusion Principle states that no two electrons in the same atom can have identical values for all four of their quantum numbers. In other words, (1) no more than two electrons can occupy the same orbital and (2) two electrons in the same orbital must have opposite spins (Figure 46(i) and (ii)). Figure 46.

An atom changes from a ground state to an excited state by taking on energy from its surroundings in a process called absorption. The electron absorbs the energy and jumps to a higher energy level. In the reverse process, emission, the electron returns to the ground state by releasing the extra energy it absorbed.