Orbitals

An orbital is a region in space where there is a 95% chance of finding the electron. An orbital can hold up to two electrons with opposite spins.

An electron can be thought of as a cloud with the shape of an orbital called an electron cloud. There is one type of s orbital, three types of p orbital (p_x,p_y,p_z ) with different orientations, five types of d orbitals and seven types of f orbitals each having a different shape.

sub-shell	number of orbitals
s	1
p	3
d	5
f	7

s orbitals are spherical in shape. A hydrogen atom has its electron in the 1s orbital. The 2s orbital is larger, but the same shape. Most of the time, electrons are located within these well-defined regions.The 2p subshell contains three orbitals. 2p_x, 2p_y and 2p_zp orbitals have an elongated dumbbell shape with variable charge density. There can be two electrons in each orbital.