What Is Atomic Structure?

The atomic structure of an element refers to the constitution of its nucleus

and the arrangement of the electrons around it. Primarily, the atomic
structure of matter is made up of protons, electrons and neutrons.

The protons and neutrons make up the nucleus of the atom, which is
surrounded by the electrons belonging to the atom. The atomic number of
an element describes the total number of protons in its nucleus.

Neutral atoms have equal numbers of protons and electrons. However,

atoms may gain or lose electrons in order to increase their stability, and
the resulting charged entity is called an ion.

Atoms of different elements have different atomic structures because they

contain different numbers of protons and electrons. This is the reason for
the unique characteristics of different elements.

Atomic Models
In the 18th and 19th centuries, many scientists attempted to explain the
structure of the atom with the help of atomic models. Each of these models
had its own merits and demerits and was pivotal to the development of
the modern atomic model. The most notable contributions to the field
were by the scientists such as John Dalton, J.J. Thomson, Ernest Rutherford
and Niels Bohr. Their ideas on the structure of the atom are discussed in
this subsection.

Dalton’s Atomic Theory

The English chemist John Dalton suggested that all matter is made up of
atoms, which were indivisible and indestructible. He also stated that all the
atoms of an element were exactly the same, but the atoms of different
elements differ in size and mass.

Chemical reactions, according to Dalton’s atomic theory, involve a

rearrangement of atoms to form products. According to the postulates

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proposed by Dalton, the atomic structure comprises atoms, the smallest
particle responsible for the chemical reactions to occur.

The following are the postulates of his theory:

• Every matter is made up of atoms.

• Atoms are indivisible.
• Specific elements have only one type of atom in them.
• Each atom has its own constant mass that varies from element to element.
• Atoms undergo rearrangement during a chemical reaction.
• Atoms can neither be created nor destroyed but can be transformed from one
form to another.

Dalton’s atomic theory successfully explained the Laws of chemical

reactions, namely, the Law of conservation of mass, the Law of constant
properties, the Law of multiple proportions and the Law of reciprocal
proportions.

Demerits of Dalton’s Atomic Theory

• The theory was unable to explain the existence of isotopes.

• Nothing about the structure of the atom was appropriately explained.
• Later, scientists discovered particles inside the atom that proved the atoms are
divisible.

The discovery of particles inside atoms led to a better understanding of

chemical species; these particles inside the atoms are called subatomic
particles. The discovery of various subatomic particles is as follows:

Thomson Atomic Model

The English chemist Sir Joseph John Thomson put forth his model
describing the atomic structure in the early 1900s.

He was later awarded the Nobel Prize for the discovery of “electrons”. His
work is based on an experiment called the cathode ray experiment. The
construction of working of the experiment is as follows:

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Cathode Ray Experiment
It has a tube made of glass which has two openings, one for the vacuum
pump and the other for the inlet through which a gas is pumped in.

The role of the vacuum pump is to maintain a “partial vacuum” inside the
glass chamber. A high-voltage power supply is connected
using electrodes, i.e., cathode and anode, which are fitted inside the glass
tube.

Observations:

• When a high voltage power supply is switched on, there are rays emerging
from the cathode towards the anode. This was confirmed by the ‘Fluorescent
spots’ on the ZnS screen used. These rays were called “Cathode Rays”.
• When an external electric field is applied, the cathode rays get deflected
towards the positive electrode, but in the absence of an electric field, they
travel in a straight line.
• When rotor Blades are placed in the path of the cathode rays, they seem to
rotate. This proves that the cathode rays are made up of particles of a certain

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 mass so that they have some energy.

• With all this evidence, Thompson concluded that cathode rays are made of
negatively charged particles called “electrons”.
• On applying the electric and magnetic field upon the cathode rays (electrons),
Thomson found the charge-to-mass ratio (e/m) of electrons. (e/m) for
electron: 17588 × 1011 e/bg.

From this ratio, the charge of the electron was found by Mullikin through an
oil drop experiment. [Charge of e– = 1.6 × 10-16 C and Mass of e– = 9.1093 × 10-
31
kg].

Conclusions:
Based on conclusions from his cathode ray experiment, Thomson
described the atomic structure as a positively charged sphere into which
negatively charged electrons were embedded.

It is commonly referred to as the “plum pudding model” because it can be

visualised as a plum pudding dish where the pudding describes the
positively charged atom and the plum pieces describe the electrons.

Thomson’s atomic structure described atoms as electrically neutral, i.e., the

positive and the negative charges were of equal magnitude.

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Limitations of Thomson’s Atomic Structure: Thomson’s atomic model
does not clearly explain the stability of an atom. Also, further discoveries of
other subatomic particles couldn’t be placed inside his atomic model.

Rutherford Atomic Theory

Rutherford, a student of J. J. Thomson, modified the atomic structure with
the discovery of another subatomic particle called “Nucleus”. His atomic
model is based on the Alpha ray scattering experiment.

Alpha Ray Scattering Experiment

Construction:

• A very thin gold foil of 1000 atoms thick is taken.

• Alpha rays (doubly charged Helium He2+) were made to bombard the gold foil.
• Zn S screen is placed behind the gold foil.

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 •

Observations:

• Most of the rays just went through the gold foil, making scintillations (bright
spots) in the ZnS screen.
• A few rays got reflected after hitting the gold foil.
• One in 1000 rays got reflected by an angle of 180° (retraced path) after hitting
the gold foil.

Conclusions:

• Since most rays passed through, Rutherford concluded that most of the space
inside the atom is empty.
• A few rays got reflected because of the repulsion of its positive with some other
positive charge inside the atom.
• 1/1000th of the rays got strongly deflected because of a very strong positive
charge in the centre of the atom. He called this strong positive charge
“nucleus”.
• He said most of the charge and mass of the atom resides in the nucleus.

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Rutherford’s Structure of Atom
Based on the above observations and conclusions, Rutherford proposed
his own atomic structure, which is as follows.

• The nucleus is at the centre of an atom, where most of the charge and mass is
concentrated.
• The atomic structure is spherical.
• Electrons revolve around the nucleus in a circular orbit, similar to the way
planets orbit the sun.

Limitations of the Rutherford Atomic Model

• If electrons have to revolve around the nucleus, they will spend energy and
that too against the strong force of attraction from the nucleus, a lot of energy
will be spent by the electrons, and eventually, they will lose all their energy and
will fall into the nucleus so the stability of atom is not explained.
• If electrons continuously revolve around the ‘nucleus, the type of spectrum
expected is a continuous spectrum. But in reality, what we see is a line
spectrum.

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Bohr’s Atomic Theory
Neils Bohr put forth his model of the atom in the year 1915. This is the most
widely used atomic model to describe the atomic structure of an element
which is based on Planck’s theory of quantization.

Postulates:

• The electrons inside atoms are placed in discrete orbits called “stationery
orbits”.
• The energy levels of these shells can be represented via quantum numbers.
• Electrons can jump to higher levels by absorbing energy and move to lower
energy levels by losing or emitting their energy.
• As long as an electron stays in its own stationery, there will be no absorption or
emission of energy.
• Electrons revolve around the nucleus in these stationary orbits only.
• The energy of the stationary orbits is quantised.

Limitations of Bohr’s Atomic Theory:

• Bohr’s atomic structure works only for single electron species such as H, He+,
Li2+, Be3+, ….
• When the emission spectrum of hydrogen was observed under a more
accurate spectrometer, each line spectrum was seen to be a combination of a
number of smaller discrete lines.
• Both Stark and Zeeman’s effects couldn’t be explained using Bohr’s theory.

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Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle: Heisenberg stated that no two
conjugate physical quantities could be measured simultaneously with
100% accuracy. There will always be some error or uncertainty in the
measurement.

Drawback: Position and momentum are two such conjugate quantities

that were measured accurately by Bohr (theoretically).

Stark effect: Phenomenon of deflection of electrons in the presence of an

electric field.

Zeeman effect: Phenomenon of deflection of electrons in the presence of a

magnetic field.

Dual Nature of Matter

The electrons, which were treated to be particles, and the evidence of the
photoelectric effect show they also have a wave nature. This was proved
by Thomas Young with the help of his double-slit experiment.

De-Broglie concluded that since nature is symmetrical, so should light or

any other matter wave be.

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Question bank

1. Explain atomic structure

2. Explain Daltons atomic theory with its postulates and demerits
3. Explain Cathode Ray experiment proposed by Thomson
4. Explain Rutherford atomic theory
5. Explain plum pudding model of Sir J J Thomson.
6. Explain Alpha ray scattering experiment performed by Rutherford
7. Explain Bohr’s Atomic theory
8. Write a note on history and development of various models of Atomic Structure.

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