Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-chemistry-a-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2021/paper-2/a9/a/ii/solution
Past exam of the chemistry A course of the University of Cambridge 2021 Paper 2 A9 a ii Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-20
Metallic atomic densities place very many electrons in a small volume. The Pauli exclusion principle prevents all these fermions occupying the lowest spatial state, so filling the available states produces a Fermi energy of order electronvolts. At room temperature, , much smaller than that scale. Equivalently, ordinary metals are at , where is the Fermi temperature. Their electrons are quantum degenerate even at ordinary laboratory temperatures.
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