Do electron clouds overlap when hybridization occurs?

1 Answer
Aug 7, 2017

First of all, electron clouds CAN overlap, and they must, to form chemical bonds in the first place!

The attraction of nucleus A to the electrons in atom B balance out with the repulsion of the two negatively-charged electron clouds and of the two positively-charged nuclei when bonds form at the potential energy minimum.

![https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/](https://useruploads.socratic.org/WWgEKLayRYS1gMWsOXpv_attachment.php)

And so, they must be able to overlap to form hybridized atomic orbitals in a linear combination.

Take the sp^3 for example:

Psi_(sp^3) = c_1psi_(s) + c_2psi_(p_x) + c_3psi_(p_y) + c_4psi_(p_z)

where each wave function psi represents a given pure atomic orbital, with weighted contributions given by c_i. As a result, Psi_(sp^3) represents the sp^3-hybridized orbital.

All that the above equation says is that hybridized orbitals form by the overlap of pure atomic orbitals.

![http://www.mhhe.com/](useruploads.socratic.org)

They achieve an intermediate energy between the original orbitals, so that all the hybridized orbitals are:

  • the same energy
  • the same look/symmetry

So, in "CH"_4, carbon would hybridize its 2s and 2p_(x//y//z) as follows:

This then allows the orbitals to align themselves along the internuclear axes, and bond by head-on overlap (meaning, sigma overlap) with outer atoms.

You can see more info on this here.