Research team devises a means for measuring quantum tunneling time
Friday, May 18, 2012 - 06:30
in Physics & Chemistry
(Phys.org) -- In a bit of inspired research, a diverse team of researchers has devised a means for measuring the time it takes for an electron to tunnel through a barrier. Led by Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science, Dror Shafir, the team as they describe in their paper published in the journal Nature used one laser to lower a barrier allowing an electron to escape via tunneling from its Helium atom, and another to prod it back again and in the process were able to measure the time it took to do so.