07096 IUPAC Gold Book - Rydberg state 10.1351/goldbook.RT07096 RT07096 current 1 An electronic state that arises by the excitation of a valence electron to a diffuse atomic-like orbital. For instance, the lowest lying Rydberg state (n, 3S) of $\ce{NH3}$ can be described as resulting from the excitation of a non-bonding orbital to a 3S Rydberg orbital. Rydberg orbital https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/R05431 electronic state https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/ET07026 valence https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/V06588 PAC, 1999, 71, 1919. 'Glossary of terms used in theoretical organic chemistry' on page 1961 (https://doi.org/10.1351/pac199971101919) https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/RT07096/html https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/RT07096/json https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/RT07096/plain Citation: 'Rydberg state' in IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry; 2025. Online version 5.0.0, 2025. 10.1351/goldbook.RT07096 The IUPAC Gold Book is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) for individual terms. If you are interested in licensing the Gold Book for commercial use, please contact the IUPAC Executive Director at executivedirector@iupac.org . The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) is continuously reviewing and, where needed, updating terms in the Compendium of Chemical Terminology (the IUPAC Gold Book). Users of these terms are encouraged to include the version of a term with its use and to check regularly for updates to term definitions that you are using. 2026-04-27T14:51:48+00:00