Quantum Orbitals
an electron's probability cloud, drawn in light

What you see on every new tab

Quantum Orbitals draws the shapes of electron orbitals as clouds of glowing dots on black. Three nested copies of one shape, teal outside, pale blue in the middle and white-pink inside, close in on a magenta nucleus while the camera circles them once every 70 seconds.

It tours twelve orbitals, from the two-lobed p_z to the eight-lobed g_xy(x²−y²), holding each for 7 seconds and melting into the next over 3.5 seconds, so one full tour takes a little over two minutes.

• About 99,000 dots: Each shell is a grid of 150 rows by 220 columns of points, and the side of the cloud facing you is drawn brighter than the far side.
• A moving lattice: Rows stream around the vertical axis at about one lap every 25 seconds, the middle shell turning the other way, while a slow wave nudges rows toward the poles.
• Field lines: 144 dipole loops wrap the vertical axis and turn slowly, with pulses running along them. They are strongest in f_xyz and almost vanish in d_z².
• Poles and nucleus: Two pink-white glows sit just above and below the nucleus and brighten when the field lines are strong.
• Camera height: Each orbital has its own viewing angle: flat shapes lying in the equatorial plane are seen from high above, upright ones from nearer the side.

The vertex shader places every dot itself: for the two orbitals being blended it runs the associated Legendre recurrence on the graphics card and mixes the two radii, so the morph costs the processor nothing.

What it reacts to

• Mouse: The camera swings toward the cursor, up to about 30 degrees sideways and 20 degrees up or down at the screen edge, so you can turn the cloud by hand.
• Music: With music sync on, bass makes the cloud up to 14 percent bigger and brighter and speeds the streaming rows, mids brighten the field lines, and treble makes the dots sparkle.
• Beat: A kick flashes the nucleus larger and brighter and pushes the tour forward, so a busy track moves through the orbitals sooner.
• Night: After dusk on Auto, or in Night mode, a dark veil of up to 60 percent dims the dots.

Free or Pro?Pro

Ambient New Tab is free to install, with five free themes. Quantum Orbitals is a Pro theme. Pro is $5.99 a month or $39.99 a year, cancel anytime, or $59 once for Pro Forever, and it unlocks every Pro theme, music sync, and every new theme as we release it. You can preview Quantum Orbitals full screen before you buy: open the Themes panel and rest your mouse on it. Changed your mind? 14-day refund, no questions.

How to get it

1. Add Ambient New Tab to Chrome.
2. Open a new tab and click the Themes pill in the bottom-right corner.
3. Pick Quantum Orbitals. Done.

Questions

Are these the real orbital shapes?

The angles are real: each shape follows |Y_lm(θ, φ)|, the real spherical harmonic for that orbital, so the lobes and the gaps between them sit where a textbook puts them. Two liberties are taken: the radius is raised to the power 0.75 to fatten thin lobes, and every orbital is scaled to the same size.

Is Quantum Orbitals free?

It is a Pro theme. Pro is $5.99 a month or $39.99 a year, cancel anytime, or $59 once for Pro Forever. It unlocks every Pro theme, music sync, and every new theme as it is released.

Which orbitals appear, and in what order?

Twelve, in a fixed loop: d_xz, f_xyz, d_z², g_z⁴, f_xz², d_xy, f_z³, g_z²xy, p_z, g_xy(x²−y²), f_x(x²−3y²) and d_x²−y². That covers p, d, f and g shapes. Music kicks can hurry the loop along.

Why do the field lines come and go?

Each orbital has its own field-line strength. At f_xyz the 144 dipole loops and the two pole glows are at full strength; at d_z² and f_z³ they fade almost away. During each morph the strength blends between the two orbitals, so the lines rise and fade gradually rather than switching.

Does it work on my phone?

No. It's a desktop browser extension for Chrome on Windows, macOS, Linux and ChromeOS. If you're reading this on a phone, send yourself the link.

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