Nuclear charge is defined as the net positive charge experienced by an electron in a multi-electron atom. The higher the atomic number, the higher is the nuclear charge. Silicon has 14 protons while aluminium has 13 protons. Hence, silicon has a larger nuclear charge of (+14) than aluminium, which has a nuclear charge of (+13). Thus, the electrons in the 3p orbital of silicon will experience a more effective nuclear charge than aluminium.
The atomic structure of an element refers to the constitution of its nucleus and the arrangement of the electrons around it. Primarily, the atomic structure of matter is made up of protons, electrons and neutrons.
Dalton proposed that every matter is composed of atoms that are indivisible and indestructible.
The following are the postulates of his theory:
Several atomic structures of an element can exist, which differ in the total number of nucleons.These variants of elements having a different nucleon number (also known as the mass number) are called isotopes of the element. Therefore, the isotopes of an element have the same number of protons but differ in the number of neutrons. For example, there exist three known naturally occurring isotopes of hydrogen, namely, protium, deuterium, and tritium.