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Electron
hideThe electron is a subatomic particle that carries a negative electric charge. It has no known substructure and is believed to be a point particle. An electron has a mass that is approximately 1836 times less than that of the proton. The intrinsic angular momentum (spin) of the electron is a half integer value of 1/2, which means that it is a fermion. The anti-particle of the electron is called the positron, which is identical to electron except that it carries electrical and other charges of the opposite sign. In collisions electrons and positrons annihilate, producing a pair (or more) of gamma ray photons. Electrons participate in gravitational, electromagnetic and weak interactions.
The concept of an indivisible amount of electric charge was theorized to explain the chemical properties of atoms, beginning in 1838 by British natural philosopher Richard Laming; the name electron was introduced for this charge in 1894 by Irish physicist George Johnstone Stoney. The electron was identified as a particle in 1897 by J. J. Thomson and his team of British physicists. Electrons are identical particles that belong to the first generation of the lepton particle family. Electrons have quantum mechanical properties of both a particle and a wave, so they can collide with other particles and be diffracted like light. Each electron occupies a quantum state that describes its random behavior upon measuring a physical parameter, such as its energy or spin orientation. Because an electron is a type of fermion, no two electrons can occupy the same quantum state; this property is known as the Pauli exclusion principle.
In many physical phenomena, such as electricity, magnetism, and thermal conductivity, electrons play an essential role. An electron generates a magnetic field while moving, and it is deflected by external magnetic fields. When an electron is accelerated, it can absorb or radiate energy in the form of photons. Electrons, together with atomic nuclei made of protons and neutrons, make up atoms. However, electrons contribute less than 0.06% to an atom's total mass. The attractive Coulomb force between an electron and a proton causes electrons to be bound into atoms. The exchange or sharing of the electrons between two or more atoms is the main cause of chemical bonding.
Electrons were created by the Big Bang, and they are lost in stellar nucleosynthesis processes. Electrons are produced by cosmic rays entering the atmosphere and are predicted to be created by Hawking radiation at the event horizon of a black hole. Radioactive isotopes can release an electron from an atomic nucleus as a result of negative beta decay. Laboratory instruments are capable of containing and observing individual electrons, while telescopes can detect electron plasma by its energy emission. Electrons have multiple applications, including welding, cathode ray tubes, electron microscopes, radiation therapy, lasers and particle accelerators.
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News tagged with electrons
Electrons on the brink: Fractal patterns may be key to semiconductor magnetism (w/ Video)
Feb 05, 2010 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Just as the heartbeats of today's electronic devices depend on the ability to switch the flow of electricity in semiconductors on and off with lightning speed, the viability of the "spintronic" ...
Scientist make a leap in quantum computing
Feb 05, 2010 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- A major hurdle in the ambitious quest to design and construct a radically new kind of quantum computer has been finding a way to manipulate the single electrons that very likely will constitute ...
Carbon Based Chips May One Day Replace Silicon Transistors
Nanotechnology / Nanomaterials
Feb 03, 2010 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- IBM researchers are hopeful that, over the next decade, silicon-based transistors will be replaced by carbon-based transistors. IBM has already laid out the ground work for carbon-based transistors.
Scientists grow solar cell components in tobacco plants
Nanotechnology / Bio & Medicine
Jan 29, 2010 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Over billions of years, plants have evolved very efficient sunlight-collecting systems. Now, scientists are trying to harness the finely tuned systems in tobacco plants in order to use them ...
Nanocables could lead to more powerful lithium-ion batteries
Nanotechnology / Nanomaterials
Jan 28, 2010 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- By itself, titanium dioxide (TiO2) is a very poor electrode. Electrons move very slowly through the material - so slowly, in fact, that it can take years to fill a millimeter-thick piece of T ...
Glasgow scientists predict mass of new particle
Jan 26, 2010 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- A team of physicists from the University of Glasgow has predicted the mass of a new particle which would help explain one of the fundamental forces of the universe.
Flash frozen under the electron microscope: Examining the mechanical properties of Alzheimer’s amyloid fibrils
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, type-II diabetes, and prion diseases like BSE all involve the deposition of amyloid fibrils in tissues and organs. These are fibrous clumps of incorrectly folded ...
How do free electrons originate?
Jan 20, 2010 |
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Scientists at Max Planck Institute of Plasma Physics (IPP) in Garching and Greifswald and Fritz Haber Institute in Berlin, Germany, have discovered a new way in which high-energy radiation in water can release slow electrons. ...
Electric control of aligned spins improves computer memory
Jan 19, 2010 |
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Researchers from Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB, Germany) and the French research facility CNRS, south of Paris, are using electric fields to manipulate the property of electrons known as "spin" to store data permanently. ...
Turning down the noise in quantum data storage
Jan 19, 2010 |
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Researchers who hope to create quantum computers are currently investigating various methods to store data. Nitrogen atoms embedded in diamond show promise for encoding quantum bits (qubits), but the process ...
New visible light photocatalyst kills bacteria, even after light turned off
Jan 19, 2010 |
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In the battle against bacteria, researchers at the University of Illinois have developed a powerful new weapon - an enhanced photocatalytic disinfection process that uses visible light to destroy harmful bacteria and viruses, ...
Graphene-Based Nanomat Could Lead to Next-Generation Catalysts
Nanotechnology / Nanomaterials
Jan 19, 2010 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers have found a new use for graphene, the single-atom-thick sheet of carbon atoms that resembles chicken wire. Ever since graphene was first observed in 2004, its large surface area, ...
Radio pulses from pulsar appear to move faster than light
Jan 14, 2010 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Laboratory experiments in the last few decades have shown that some things can appear to move faster than light without contradicting Einstein's special theory of relativity, but now astrophysicists ...
Giant Rydberg atoms confined in a micro-glass cell
Jan 14, 2010 |
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Rydberg atoms are highly sensitive atoms, as one electron is only loosely bound. Compared to 'normal' atoms which are one tenth of a nanometer in size those giant atoms are ~100 nanometers large. Due to their sensitivity ...
The Efficacy of Bacteria
Jan 12, 2010 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Marching to their own drummer. That's what bacteria from different environments do when turning toxic, mobile selenium into a less dangerous, non-mobile form, according to a study led by Dr. ...
