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Chemistry · Glossary

What is Molecular orbital?

Also known as: LCAO

Definition 14.1 University Chemistry — Year 2 · Chapter 14 — Molecular Orbitals of Diatomic Molecules

A molecular orbital is the wavefunction of one electron in a molecule, spread over all its nuclei. In the LCAO method (linear combination of atomic orbitals) it is written as a sum of atomic orbitals of the atoms, ψ=∑iciφi\psi = \sum_i c_i\varphi_i, with coefficients chosen to make the energy lowest.

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