Spectroscopic notation
Spectroscopic notation provides various ways to specify atomic ionization states, as well as atomic and molecular orbitals.
Spectroscopists customarily refer to the spectrum arising from a given ionization state of a given element by the element's symbol followed by a Roman numeral. The numeral I is used for spectral lines associated with the neutral element, II for those from the first ionization state, III for those from the second ionization state, and so on. For example, 'He I' denotes lines of neutral helium, and 'C IV' denotes lines arising from the third ionization state, C3+, of carbon. This notation is used for example to retrieve data from the NIST Atomic Spectrum Database.
Before atomic orbitals were understood, spectroscopists discovered various distinctive series of spectral lines in atomic spectra, which they identified by letters. These letters were later associated with the azimuthal quantum number, l. The letters, "s", "p", "d", and "f", for the first four values of l were chosen to be the first letters of properties of the spectral series observed in alkali metals. Letters for subsequent values of l were assigned in alphabetical order, omitting the letter "j" because some languages do not distinguish between the letters "i" and "j":
This notation is used to specify electron configurations and to create the term symbol for the electron states in a multi-electron atom. When writing a term symbol, the above scheme for a single electron's orbital quantum number is applied to the total orbital angular momentum associated to an electron state.
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