Landmarc Scientific Concepts: Quantum Tunneling
- Updated Sunday Jun 30 2024
Landmarc Scientific Concepts: Quantum Tunneling
Quantum tunneling is a phenomenon in quantum mechanics where particles pass through a potential barrier that they classically shouldn't be able to. This occurs because particles, such as electrons, exhibit both wave-like and particle-like properties. When a particle encounters a barrier, its wave function, which describes the probability of its position, doesn't drop to zero immediately but rather decays exponentially within the barrier. If the barrier is thin enough, the wave function can still have a non-zero value on the other side, allowing the particle to "tunnel" through. This process is fundamental in many areas, including nuclear fusion in stars, semiconductor physics, and the operation of tunnel diodes and quantum computing. Quantum tunneling exemplifies the non-intuitive nature of quantum mechanics, where classical laws do not always apply.
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