What is the electron configuration for Silicon?

The electron configuration for Silicon is represented as [Ne] 3s² 3p². Silicon has an atomic number of 14, meaning it has 14 electrons. To determine the electron configuration, we fill the orbitals according to the Aufbau principle, Hund's rule, and the Pauli exclusion principle.

Starting from the lowest energy level, electrons fill up the 1s, 2s, and 2p orbitals first, which accounts for the first 10 electrons (1s² 2s² 2p⁶). The next two electrons will then fill the 3s orbital (3s²), followed by the last two electrons filling the 3p orbital (3p²). Therefore, the configuration builds up as [Ne] for the first ten electrons, followed by 3s² and then 3p², resulting in the complete configuration of [Ne] 3s² 3p² for Silicon.

The other choices are not correct because they either add too many or too few electrons or incorrectly assign the electron levels according to the order of filling. For instance, [Ne] 3s² 3p⁴ suggests that Silicon has 16 electrons, which is