Answer – Orbital notation is a symbolic representation used to indicate the distribution of electrons within the electron orbitals of an atom.
Explanation:
The notation is written with the principle quantum number followed by the letter of the subshell, and then the number of electrons in the subshell as a superscript. For example, the orbital notation for carbon would be 1s²2s²2p², which indicates that there are two electrons in the 1s subshell, two electrons in the 2s subshell, and two electrons in the 2p subshell. This is because the atomic number of carbon is 6, and these three pairs of electrons are equally distributed in the subshells.
Orbital notation can also be represented visually with orbital diagrams. In an orbital diagram, each orbital is represented by a box, and the electrons are represented by arrows. The arrows indicate the spin of the electrons, with one arrow pointing up and the other pointing down.
Below is an orbital diagram for helium. It has two electrons (atomic number is 2) in the 1s orbital with opposite spins.
