Quantum tunneling takes time, new study shows
Quantum particles can burrow through barriers that should be impenetrable — but they don’t do it instantaneously, a new experiment suggests. The process, known as quantum tunneling, takes place extremely quickly, making it difficult to confirm whether it takes any time at all. Now, in a study of electrons escaping from their atoms, scientists have pinpointed how long the particles take to tunnel out: around 100 attoseconds, or 100 billionths of a billionth of a second, researchers report July 14 in Physical Review Letters.
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