electron cloud

This article is about the structure of an atom. For the particle accelerator phenomenon, see Electron-Cloud Effect. Electron cloud is a term used, if not originally coined, by the Nobel Prize laureate and acclaimed educator Richard Feynman in The Feynman Lectures on Physics for discussing "exactly what is an electron?". This intuitive model provides a simplified way of visualizing an electron as a solution of the Schrödinger equation. In the electron cloud analogy, the probability density of an electron, is described as a small cloud around the atomic or molecular nucleus or in free space, with the thickness of the cloud proportional to the probability density.
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