What Are Angular Nodes , Radial Nodes, Nodal Plane and Nodal Surfaces? [duplicate]








**This question already has answers here**:
 
 




[What are angular and radial nodes?](/questions/8655/what-are-angular-and-radial-nodes)

 (3 answers)
 

Closed last year.



Actually, i am confused between all of them. some says that angular node is same as nodal planes and radial nodes is same as nodal surfaces... and what's the difference between nodal planes and nodal surfaces. other says that angular node is the intersection point of nodal plane. please explain in easy explanation.




You are on the right track.


* Nodes are generally 3D surface regions where electron occurrence probability density is zero.
* Nodal planes and surfaces are such nodes from geometrical point of view.
* Radial and angular nodes are such nodes from point of view of wave functions. As either radial either angular part of a wave function is responsible of the zero density value.
* From the geometry of used spherical coordinates, it is quite clear that radial nodes are 3D spherical surfaces with constant radius, like for s orbitals.
* Analogically, a constant angle of angular nodes leads to a 3D plane intersecting the coordinate origin, like for p orbitals.
* Therefore,


	+ radial nodes = spherical nodes
	+ angular nodes = planar nodes
* For higher values of n and l quantum numbers, nodes are collection of radial and angular nodes, or nodal spherical surfaces and planes.
* As wave functions do not have sharp boundary, but converge to zero values in infinity, the intersection of an atom and a nodal plane is – mathematically – the nodal plane. Practically the conventional size of atoms.


 1