Laboratory instruments are capable of trapping individual electrons as well as electron plasma by the use of electromagnetic fields. Electrons radiate or absorb energy in the form of photons when they are accelerated. Electromagnetic fields produced from other sources will affect the motion of an electron according to the Lorentz force law. Since an electron has charge, it has a surrounding electric field, and if that electron is moving relative to an observer, said observer will observe it to generate a magnetic field. The wave properties of electrons are easier to observe with experiments than those of other particles like neutrons and protons because electrons have a lower mass and hence a longer de Broglie wavelength for a given energy.Įlectrons play an essential role in numerous physical phenomena, such as electricity, magnetism, chemistry and thermal conductivity, and they also participate in gravitational, electromagnetic and weak interactions. Like all elementary particles, electrons exhibit properties of both particles and waves: They can collide with other particles and can be diffracted like light. Being fermions, no two electrons can occupy the same quantum state, in accordance with the Pauli exclusion principle. Quantum mechanical properties of the electron include an intrinsic angular momentum ( spin) of a half-integer value, expressed in units of the reduced Planck constant, ħ. The electron's mass is approximately 1836 times smaller than that of the proton. Įlectrons belong to the first generation of the lepton particle family, Īnd are generally thought to be elementary particles because they have no known components or substructure. ) whose electric charge is negative one elementary charge. The electron is a subatomic particle (denoted by the symbol

Charge of electron