In physics, quantum tunnelling, barrier penetration, or simply tunnelling is a quantum mechanical phenomenon in which an object such as an electron or atom passes through a potential energy barrier that, according to classical mechanics, the object does not have sufficient energy to enter or surmount.
Tunneling is a consequence of the wave nature of matter, where the quantum wave function describes the state of a particle or other physical system, and wave equations such as the Schrödinger equation describe their behavior. The probability of transmission of a wave packet through a barrier decreases exponentially with the barrier height, the barrier width, and the tunneling particle's mass, so tunneling is seen most prominently in low-mass particles such as electrons or protons tunneling through microscopically narrow barriers. Tunneling is readily detectable with barriers of thickness about 1–3 nm or smaller for electrons, and about 0.1 nm or smaller for heavier particles such as protons or hydrogen atoms. Some sources describe the mere penetration of a wave function into the barrier, without transmission on the other side, as a tunneling effect.
Tunneling plays an essential role in physical phenomena such as nuclear fusion and alpha radioactive decay of atomic nuclei. Tunneling applications include the tunnel diode, quantum computing, flash memory, and the scanning tunneling microscope. Tunneling limits the minimum size of devices used in microelectronics because electrons tunnel readily through insulating layers and transistors that are thinner than about 1 nm.
The effect was predicted in the early 20th century. Its acceptance as a general physical phenomenon came mid-century.
Quantum tunneling was developed from the study of radioactivity, which was discovered in 1896 by Henri Becquerel. Radioactivity was examined further by Marie Curie and Pierre Curie, for which they earned the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903. Ernest Rutherford and Egon Schweidler studied its nature, which was later verified empirically by Friedrich Kohlrausch.
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Isotopes are distinct nuclear species (or nuclides, as technical term) of the same element. They have the same atomic number (number of protons in their nuclei) and position in the periodic table (and hence belong to the same chemical element), but differ in nucleon numbers (mass numbers) due to different numbers of neutrons in their nuclei. While all isotopes of a given element have almost the same chemical properties, they have different atomic masses and physical properties.
In physics, quantum tunnelling, barrier penetration, or simply tunnelling is a quantum mechanical phenomenon in which an object such as an electron or atom passes through a potential energy barrier that, according to classical mechanics, the object does not have sufficient energy to enter or surmount. Tunneling is a consequence of the wave nature of matter, where the quantum wave function describes the state of a particle or other physical system, and wave equations such as the Schrödinger equation describe their behavior.
A potential well is the region surrounding a local minimum of potential energy. Energy captured in a potential well is unable to convert to another type of energy (kinetic energy in the case of a gravitational potential well) because it is captured in the local minimum of a potential well. Therefore, a body may not proceed to the global minimum of potential energy, as it would naturally tend to do due to entropy. Energy may be released from a potential well if sufficient energy is added to the system such that the local maximum is surmounted.
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