What does the electron do when an atom emits a photon?

Answer 1

Atoms actually emit light by reflecting light. I just did a science project on this and when I researched it, atoms take the sun's rays and absorb them. Darker colours, with darker atoms, such as blue, red, and black, lock in more of the sun's rays and lighter colours, with lighter atoms, such as yellow, white, and orange, reflect more of the light and the sun's rays. That's why if you put a black car and a white car next to each other in a parking lot for an hour and you come back and the black car feels hotter than the white car.

Atoms also emit light in another way. The electrons in an atoms have certain values of energy, and are not all the same. Scientists think of them as occupying points on a 'ladder' of energy values. When an atom gains energy, for instance being heated such as flames, hot metal and stars, the electrons of the atom increase in energy levels. They will then drop back down the 'ladder' and emit energy as a photon - a single packet of energy. The energy of the photon is equal to the difference in energy between the electrons original energy level and its new level. The higher the drop down the 'ladder' the more energy the electron loses and so the more energy in the emitted photon. This changes it's wavelength in the electromagnetic spectrum. That's why metal first glows red, as it emits the lower red part of the spectrum, and increases to white hot, as it emits all different wavelengths. The combination of colours build up to form the colour white. Very hot stars can even glow blue, only emitting the top end of the spectrum. Each element in the Periodic Table emits (and absorbs, in the reverse process, reflecting photons of the wrong energy value) different parts of the spectrum, giving us the ranges of colour we see. In 1868, by looking at the parts of the spectrum emitted from the corona of the sun during a total eclipse, Helium was discovered, as it did not match any other element known to man.

Answer 2

A photon is emitted from an atom when one of its electrons moves from one energy level to a lower level. The electron must give up energy to make this transition, and that energy appears as a photon. The energy of the photon will be the same as the energy difference between level the electron was in and the level where it ends up.

It should also be noted that an atomic nucleus can emit a photon (a really high energy one) during certain types of nuclear change.

Answer 3

all kinds of ways. fire photons into them (the photons will be absorbed and then emitted again), heat them up so they bang into each other, that'll release some light. you can ionise them and allow the nucleus and electrons to recombine, that'll release light. fuse their nuclei if you can, that'll emit light. that should be enough to be getting on with :)

Answer 4

answer:

The current easiest model of atom to explain is for you to think of a ball made of tightly packed particles called neutrons and protons; the neutrons have no charge and the protons have a positive charge. Way out in the distance is the electrons, which are much smaller, but have negative charge (opposite to protons) that is equal and opposite to the charge of a proton. Because unlike charges attract, the electrons are stuck orbiting the nucleus of tightly bound protons and neutrons, and that's our atom.

the common way is for an electron which only exists in defined orbits around the atom nucleus (that's nearly all of them that are connected to atoms)!: defined means at certain distances away from the nucleus the electron can appear, but it is not allowed in-between these areas, and instead it simply jumps between the allowed levels. When an electron loses energy it jumps down an energy level (it goes closer to the nucleus), the energy that was lost is emitted as a particle called a photon of light.

Because the orbit of the electron is quantised (which means it can only take definite values), the energy given off in the light is quantised too!

E=hf, where h = planks constant, f=frequency of the light.

What would happen if the electron jumped down a very large energy level gap? Well, E would be greater wouldn't it? Because h is a constant, f would be greater.

So what can we say about light? The UV end of the spectrum comes about from greater energy jumps by electrons than that of infra-red. Note: infra-red is not in the visible spectrum and you wont see it.

This is very true for things that get red hot. In that case the electrons energy jumps have reached an energy that means the frequency is now in this visible spectrum! Therefore the frequency of the light being given out is proportional to the temperature to some power.

With this area of physics your heading towards quantum mechanics.

Answer 5

When an electron is excited to a higher energy state, it absorbs energy. It is unstable and falls back down to its ground state, emitting a photon of light of the same amount of energy that was absorbed.

Answer 6

A photon is emitted when an electron moves from an excited state to a ground state.

Answer 7

When an atom emits a photon it means some of its electrons released energy, so they go to a orbital closer to the nucleous.

Answer 8

moves from an 'excited' higher energy level, to a lower energy level.