How would you compare and contrast electric insulators and conductors? What are examples of each? At an atomic level, what is it that allows something to conduct electricity?
1 Answer
I would summarize it by considering the electronic external structure of the atoms.
Explanation:
Conductors have loosely bound electrons in their outer shells (they are far from the nucleus and shielded from it by the other inner electrons); these "external" electrons are available for conduction. It is enough to superimpose an external electric field onto the material and these external electrons will tend to free themselves and move from one atom to another. Metals have this kind of structure so that you'll find good representatives of conductors among metal such as Copper, Aluminum, Iron, etc.
Polymers instead have a very different structure (with Carbon atoms having more complex and somewhat more "strict" structures than that of the metals that are arranged in form of crystals) and their atoms have very few electrons available for conduction; Rubber and Plastic in general will be good representatives of this category called insulators.
You can imagine that conductors are like people that like to spend money; it is enough to have a simple excuse and they open the wallet and money (electrons) starts to flow.
Insulators are stingy people...even during a big party they never open they wallet to pay a round!
