In chemistry, an electron pair or a Lewis pair consists of two electrons that occupy the same orbital but have opposite spins. The electron pair concept was introduced in a 1916 paper of Gilbert N. Lewis.
MO diagrams depicting covalent (left) and polar covalent (right) bonding in a diatomic molecule. In both cases a bond is created by the formation of an electron pair.
Because electrons are fermions, the Pauli exclusion principle forbids these particles from having exactly the same quantum numbers. Therefore, the only way to occupy the same orbital, i.e. have the same orbital quantum numbers, is to differ in the spin quantum number. This limits the number of electrons in the same orbital to exactly two.
The pairing of spins is often energetically favorable and electron pairs therefore play a very large role in chemistry. They can form a chemical bond between two atoms, or they can occur as a lone pair of valence electrons. They also fill the core levels of an atom.

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