Which of the following elements is the smallest between phosphorus chlorine sulfur and silicon

The atomic radius of elements are used to estimate the sizes of elements. The atomic radius is taken as half of the inter-nuclear distance between two covalently bonded atoms of non-metallic elements or half of the distance between two nuclei in the solid state of metals.

To solve this problem we will obtain the atomic radius values of the given elements from a standard atomic radius table;

         Si          111 pm

          P          98 pm

         Cl          79 pm

           S           87pm

pm = picometer

We see that chlorine has the least atomic radius

Explanation: