it just estimate.
Hehe.............now it's simpler.
First you should note that all of them are in
Group 1. Hence their outermost electrons lie in an
s-orbital.
However as we move
down the group from lithium to potassium, the electric force between the positively charged nucleus and the outermost electron
decreases since there is more shielding effect by the other preceding shells.
Moreover lithium has electronic configuration of 1s
22s
1. Losing one electron to form its corresponding Li
+ ion will cause the electric force between the nucleus and the remaining two electrons from the 1s orbital to increase.
So ionic radius decreases. However when compared to sodium and potassium, this decrease is low since the electric force involves less protons(Li has only 3 protons while sodium has 11).
Decrease for sodium was (186 - 95) = 91.
For lithium, this decrease would be much lower, lets say about 70.
Hence ionic radius comes out to be around
80.