magine a car passing through a locked gate without breaking it. It sounds like a scene from a sci-fi movie, but in the bizarre world of quantum physics, something just as bizarre happens for real.
Particles like electrons can sometimes pass through energy barriers they wouldn’t normally be able to cross, in a process known as quantum tunneling. This mysterious behavior is the key to everything from nuclear fusion in stars to electronics in modern devices.
Yet, scientists have long struggled to answer one fundamental question: How long does this tunneling take? This is because the timescales are unimaginably small, occurring within attoseconds (billionths of a billionth of a second).
However, a new study introduces a novel method that simplifies the measurement process and finally brings clarity to this long-standing tunneling mystery.
To read more, click here.