Electron affinity

Last updated

The electron affinity (Eea) of an atom or molecule is defined as the amount of energy released when an electron attaches to a neutral atom or molecule in the gaseous state to form an anion.

Contents

X(g) + e− → X−(g) + energy

This differs by sign from the energy change of electron capture ionization. [1] The electron affinity is positive when energy is released on electron capture.

In solid state physics, the electron affinity for a surface is defined somewhat differently (see below).

Measurement and use of electron affinity

This property is used to measure atoms and molecules in the gaseous state only, since in a solid or liquid state their energy levels would be changed by contact with other atoms or molecules.

A list of the electron affinities was used by Robert S. Mulliken to develop an electronegativity scale for atoms, equal to the average of the electrons affinity and ionization potential. [2] [3] Other theoretical concepts that use electron affinity include electronic chemical potential and chemical hardness. Another example, a molecule or atom that has a more positive value of electron affinity than another is often called an electron acceptor and the less positive an electron donor. Together they may undergo charge-transfer reactions.

Sign convention

To use electron affinities properly, it is essential to keep track of sign. For any reaction that releases energy, the change ΔE in total energy has a negative value and the reaction is called an exothermic process. Electron capture for almost all non-noble gas atoms involves the release of energy [4] and thus is exothermic. The positive values that are listed in tables of Eea are amounts or magnitudes. It is the word "released" within the definition "energy released" that supplies the negative sign to ΔE. Confusion arises in mistaking Eea for a change in energy, ΔE, in which case the positive values listed in tables would be for an endo- not exo-thermic process. The relation between the two is Eea = −ΔE(attach).

However, if the value assigned to Eea is negative, the negative sign implies a reversal of direction, and energy is required to attach an electron. In this case, the electron capture is an endothermic process and the relationship, Eea = −ΔE(attach) is still valid. Negative values typically arise for the capture of a second electron, but also for the nitrogen atom.

The usual expression for calculating Eea when an electron is attached is

Eea = (Einitial − Efinal)attach = −ΔE(attach)

This expression does follow the convention ΔX = X(final) − X(initial) since −ΔE = −(E(final) − E(initial)) = E(initial) − E(final).

Equivalently, electron affinity can also be defined as the amount of energy required to detach an electron from the atom while it holds a single-excess-electron thus making the atom a negative ion, [1] i.e. the energy change for the process

X− → X + e−

If the same table is employed for the forward and reverse reactions, without switching signs, care must be taken to apply the correct definition to the corresponding direction, attachment (release) or detachment (require). Since almost all detachments (require +) an amount of energy listed on the table, those detachment reactions are endothermic, or ΔE(detach) > 0.

Eea = (Efinal − Einitial)detach = ΔE(detach) = −ΔE(attach).

Electron affinities of the elements

Electron affinity (Eea) vs atomic number (Z). Note the sign convention explanation in the previous section. Electron affinity of the elements.svg
Electron affinity (Eea) vs atomic number (Z). Note the sign convention explanation in the previous section.

Although Eea varies greatly across the periodic table, some patterns emerge. Generally, nonmetals have more positive Eea than metals. Atoms whose anions are more stable than neutral atoms have a greater Eea. Chlorine most strongly attracts extra electrons; neon most weakly attracts an extra electron. The electron affinities of the noble gases have not been conclusively measured, so they may or may not have slightly negative values.

Eea generally increases across a period (row) in the periodic table prior to reaching group 18. This is caused by the filling of the valence shell of the atom; a group 17 atom releases more energy than a group 1 atom on gaining an electron because it obtains a filled valence shell and therefore is more stable. In group 18, the valence shell is full, meaning that added electrons are unstable, tending to be ejected very quickly.

Counterintuitively, Eea does not decrease when progressing down most columns of the periodic table. For example, Eea actually increases consistently on descending the column for the group 2 data. Thus, electron affinity follows the same "left-right" trend as electronegativity, but not the "up-down" trend.

The following data are quoted in kJ/mol.

Molecular electron affinities

The electron affinity of molecules is a complicated function of their electronic structure. For instance the electron affinity for benzene is negative, as is that of naphthalene, while those of anthracene, phenanthrene and pyrene are positive. In silico experiments show that the electron affinity of hexacyanobenzene surpasses that of fullerene. [5]

"Electron affinity" as defined in solid state physics

Band diagram of semiconductor-vacuum interface showing electron affinity EEA, defined as the difference between near-surface vacuum energy Evac, and near-surface conduction band edge EC. Also shown: Fermi level EF, valence band edge EV, work function W. Semiconductor vacuum junction.svg
Band diagram of semiconductor-vacuum interface showing electron affinity EEA, defined as the difference between near-surface vacuum energy Evac, and near-surface conduction band edge EC. Also shown: Fermi level EF, valence band edge EV, work function W.

In the field of solid state physics, the electron affinity is defined differently than in chemistry and atomic physics. For a semiconductor-vacuum interface (that is, the surface of a semiconductor), electron affinity, typically denoted by EEA or χ, is defined as the energy obtained by moving an electron from the vacuum just outside the semiconductor to the bottom of the conduction band just inside the semiconductor: [6]

In an intrinsic semiconductor at absolute zero, this concept is functionally analogous to the chemistry definition of electron affinity, since an added electron will spontaneously go to the bottom of the conduction band. At nonzero temperature, and for other materials (metals, semimetals, heavily doped semiconductors), the analogy does not hold since an added electron will instead go to the Fermi level on average. In any case, the value of the electron affinity of a solid substance is very different from the chemistry and atomic physics electron affinity value for an atom of the same substance in gas phase. For example, a silicon crystal surface has electron affinity 4.05 eV, whereas an isolated silicon atom has electron affinity 1.39 eV.

The electron affinity of a surface is closely related to, but distinct from, its work function. The work function is the thermodynamic work that can be obtained by reversibly and isothermally removing an electron from the material to vacuum; this thermodynamic electron goes to the Fermi level on average, not the conduction band edge: . While the work function of a semiconductor can be changed by doping, the electron affinity ideally does not change with doping and so it is closer to being a material constant. However, like work function the electron affinity does depend on the surface termination (crystal face, surface chemistry, etc.) and is strictly a surface property.

In semiconductor physics, the primary use of the electron affinity is not actually in the analysis of semiconductor–vacuum surfaces, but rather in heuristic electron affinity rules for estimating the band bending that occurs at the interface of two materials, in particular metal–semiconductor junctions and semiconductor heterojunctions.

In certain circumstances, the electron affinity may become negative. [7] Often negative electron affinity is desired to obtain efficient cathodes that can supply electrons to the vacuum with little energy loss. The observed electron yield as a function of various parameters such as bias voltage or illumination conditions can be used to describe these structures with band diagrams in which the electron affinity is one parameter. For one illustration of the apparent effect of surface termination on electron emission, see Figure 3 in Marchywka Effect.

See also

Related Research Articles

Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a physical science within the natural sciences that studies the chemical elements that make up matter and compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions: their composition, structure, properties, behavior and the changes they undergo during reactions with other substances. Chemistry also addresses the nature of chemical bonds in chemical compounds.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chemical bond</span> Lasting attraction between atoms that enables the formation of chemical compounds

A chemical bond is a lasting attraction between atoms or ions that enables the formation of molecules, crystals, and other structures. The bond may result from the electrostatic force between oppositely charged ions as in ionic bonds, or through the sharing of electrons as in covalent bonds. The strength of chemical bonds varies considerably: there are "strong bonds" or "primary bonds" such as covalent, ionic and metallic bonds, and "weak bonds" or "secondary bonds" such as dipole–dipole interactions, the London dispersion force, and hydrogen bonding.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to chemistry:

In chemical physics and physical chemistry, chemical affinity is the electronic property by which dissimilar chemical species are capable of forming chemical compounds. Chemical affinity can also refer to the tendency of an atom or compound to combine by chemical reaction with atoms or compounds of unlike composition.

Electronegativity, symbolized as χ, is the tendency for an atom of a given chemical element to attract shared electrons when forming a chemical bond. An atom's electronegativity is affected by both its atomic number and the distance at which its valence electrons reside from the charged nucleus. The higher the associated electronegativity, the more an atom or a substituent group attracts electrons. Electronegativity serves as a simple way to quantitatively estimate the bond energy, and the sign and magnitude of a bond's chemical polarity, which characterizes a bond along the continuous scale from covalent to ionic bonding. The loosely defined term electropositivity is the opposite of electronegativity: it characterizes an element's tendency to donate valence electrons.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ionic bonding</span> Chemical bonding involving attraction between ions

Ionic bonding is a type of chemical bonding that involves the electrostatic attraction between oppositely charged ions, or between two atoms with sharply different electronegativities, and is the primary interaction occurring in ionic compounds. It is one of the main types of bonding, along with covalent bonding and metallic bonding. Ions are atoms with an electrostatic charge. Atoms that gain electrons make negatively charged ions. Atoms that lose electrons make positively charged ions. This transfer of electrons is known as electrovalence in contrast to covalence. In the simplest case, the cation is a metal atom and the anion is a nonmetal atom, but these ions can be more complex, e.g. molecular ions like NH+
4 or SO2−
4. In simpler words, an ionic bond results from the transfer of electrons from a metal to a non-metal to obtain a full valence shell for both atoms.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Metallic bonding</span> Type of chemical bond in metals

Metallic bonding is a type of chemical bonding that arises from the electrostatic attractive force between conduction electrons and positively charged metal ions. It may be described as the sharing of free electrons among a structure of positively charged ions (cations). Metallic bonding accounts for many physical properties of metals, such as strength, ductility, thermal and electrical resistivity and conductivity, opacity, and lustre.

In solid-state physics, the work function is the minimum thermodynamic work needed to remove an electron from a solid to a point in the vacuum immediately outside the solid surface. Here "immediately" means that the final electron position is far from the surface on the atomic scale, but still too close to the solid to be influenced by ambient electric fields in the vacuum. The work function is not a characteristic of a bulk material, but rather a property of the surface of the material.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ionization energy</span> Energy needed to remove an electron

In physics and chemistry, ionization energy (IE) (American English spelling), ionisation energy (British English spelling) is the minimum energy required to remove the most loosely bound electron of an isolated gaseous atom, positive ion, or molecule. The first ionization energy is quantitatively expressed as

In thermodynamics, the chemical potential of a species is the energy that can be absorbed or released due to a change of the particle number of the given species, e.g. in a chemical reaction or phase transition. The chemical potential of a species in a mixture is defined as the rate of change of free energy of a thermodynamic system with respect to the change in the number of atoms or molecules of the species that are added to the system. Thus, it is the partial derivative of the free energy with respect to the amount of the species, all other species' concentrations in the mixture remaining constant. When both temperature and pressure are held constant, and the number of particles is expressed in moles, the chemical potential is the partial molar Gibbs free energy. At chemical equilibrium or in phase equilibrium, the total sum of the product of chemical potentials and stoichiometric coefficients is zero, as the free energy is at a minimum. In a system in diffusion equilibrium, the chemical potential of any chemical species is uniformly the same everywhere throughout the system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ion source</span> Device that creates charged atoms and molecules (ions)

An ion source is a device that creates atomic and molecular ions. Ion sources are used to form ions for mass spectrometers, optical emission spectrometers, particle accelerators, ion implanters and ion engines.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chemical polarity</span> Separation of electric charge in a molecule

In chemistry, polarity is a separation of electric charge leading to a molecule or its chemical groups having an electric dipole moment, with a negatively charged end and a positively charged end.

In atomic physics, the effective nuclear charge is the actual amount of positive (nuclear) charge experienced by an electron in a multi-electron atom. The term "effective" is used because the shielding effect of negatively charged electrons prevent higher energy electrons from experiencing the full nuclear charge of the nucleus due to the repelling effect of inner layer. The effective nuclear charge experienced by an electron is also called the core charge. It is possible to determine the strength of the nuclear charge by the oxidation number of the atom. Most of the physical and chemical properties of the elements can be explained on the basis of electronic configuration. Consider the behavior of ionization energies in the periodic table. It is known that the magnitude of ionization potential depends upon the following factors:

  1. Size of atom;
  2. The nuclear charge;
  3. The screening effect of the inner shells, and
  4. The extent to which the outermost electron penetrates into the charge cloud set up by the inner lying electron.
<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chemical ionization</span> Ionization technique used in mass [[spectroscopy]]

Chemical ionization (CI) is a soft ionization technique used in mass spectrometry. This was first introduced by Burnaby Munson and Frank H. Field in 1966. This technique is a branch of gaseous ion-molecule chemistry. Reagent gas molecules are ionized by electron ionization to form reagent ions, which subsequently react with analyte molecules in the gas phase to create analyte ions for analysis by mass spectrometry. Negative chemical ionization (NCI), charge-exchange chemical ionization, atmospheric-pressure chemical ionization (APCI) and atmospheric pressure photoionization (APPI) are some of the common variants of the technique. CI mass spectrometry finds general application in the identification, structure elucidation and quantitation of organic compounds as well as some utility in biochemical analysis. Samples to be analyzed must be in vapour form, or else, must be vapourized before introduction into the source.

In chemistry, heterolysis or heterolytic fission is the process of cleaving/breaking a covalent bond where one previously bonded species takes both original bonding electrons from the other species. During heterolytic bond cleavage of a neutral molecule, a cation and an anion will be generated. Most commonly the more electronegative atom keeps the pair of electrons becoming anionic while the more electropositive atom becomes cationic.

In chemistry, a non-covalent interaction differs from a covalent bond in that it does not involve the sharing of electrons, but rather involves more dispersed variations of electromagnetic interactions between molecules or within a molecule. The chemical energy released in the formation of non-covalent interactions is typically on the order of 1–5 kcal/mol. Non-covalent interactions can be classified into different categories, such as electrostatic, π-effects, van der Waals forces, and hydrophobic effects.

In chemistry, the inductive effect in a molecule is a local change in the electron density due to electron-withdrawing or electron-donating groups elsewhere in the molecule, resulting in a permanent dipole in a bond. It is present in a σ (sigma) bond, unlike the electromeric effect which is present in a π (pi) bond.

In theoretical chemistry, Marcus theory is a theory originally developed by Rudolph A. Marcus, starting in 1956, to explain the rates of electron transfer reactions – the rate at which an electron can move or jump from one chemical species (called the electron donor) to another (called the electron acceptor). It was originally formulated to address outer sphere electron transfer reactions, in which the two chemical species only change in their charge with an electron jumping (e.g. the oxidation of an ion like Fe2+/Fe3+), but do not undergo large structural changes. It was extended to include inner sphere electron transfer contributions, in which a change of distances or geometry in the solvation or coordination shells of the two chemical species is taken into account (the Fe-O distances in Fe(H2O)2+ and Fe(H2O)3+ are different).

This glossary of chemistry terms is a list of terms and definitions relevant to chemistry, including chemical laws, diagrams and formulae, laboratory tools, glassware, and equipment. Chemistry is a physical science concerned with the composition, structure, and properties of matter, as well as the changes it undergoes during chemical reactions; it features an extensive vocabulary and a significant amount of jargon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ion</span> Particle, atom or molecule with a net electrical charge

An ion is an atom or molecule with a net electrical charge. The charge of an electron is considered to be negative by convention and this charge is equal and opposite to the charge of a proton, which is considered to be positive by convention. The net charge of an ion is not zero because its total number of electrons is unequal to its total number of protons.

References

  1. 1 2 IUPAC , Compendium of Chemical Terminology , 2nd ed. (the "Gold Book") (1997). Online corrected version: (2006–) " Electron affinity ". doi : 10.1351/goldbook.E01977
  2. ↑ Robert S. Mulliken, Journal of Chemical Physics, 1934, 2, 782.
  3. ↑ Modern Physical Organic Chemistry, Eric V. Anslyn and Dennis A. Dougherty, University Science Books, 2006, ISBN   978-1-891389-31-3
  4. ↑ Chemical Principles the Quest for Insight, Peter Atkins and Loretta Jones, Freeman, New York, 2010 ISBN   978-1-4292-1955-6
  5. ↑ Remarkable electron accepting properties of the simplest benzenoid cyanocarbons: hexacyanobenzene, octacyanonaphthalene and decacyanoanthracene Xiuhui Zhang, Qianshu Li, Justin B. Ingels, Andrew C. Simmonett, Steven E. Wheeler, Yaoming Xie, R. Bruce King, Henry F. Schaefer III and F. Albert Cotton Chemical Communications, 2006, 758–760 Abstract
  6. ↑ Tung, Raymond T. "Free Surfaces of Semiconductors". Brooklyn College.
  7. ↑ Himpsel, F.; Knapp, J.; Vanvechten, J.; Eastman, D. (1979). "Quantum photoyield of diamond(111)—A stable negative-affinity emitter". Physical Review B. 20 (2): 624. Bibcode:1979PhRvB..20..624H. doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.20.624.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.