Quantum tunneling
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| Quantum tunneling | |
|---|---|
| Name | Quantum tunneling |
| Field | Quantum mechanics |
| Discovered | 1928 |
| Discoverer | George Gamow; Ronald Gurney; Edward Condon |
| Key people | George Gamow, Ronald Gurney, Edward Condon, Max Planck, Niels Bohr, Erwin Schrödinger, Paul Dirac, Werner Heisenberg, Wolfgang Pauli, Enrico Fermi, Richard Feynman, John von Neumann, Lev Landau, Pyotr Kapitsa, Hans Bethe, Edward Teller, Eugene Wigner, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, J. Robert Oppenheimer, George Uhlenbeck, Samuel Goudsmit, Isidor Isaac Rabi, Felix Bloch, Hans Geiger, Ernest Rutherford, Otto Frisch, Rudolf Peierls, Lise Meitner, James Chadwick, Max Born, Arthur Eddington, C. N. Yang, Tsung-Dao Lee, Julian Schwinger, Sin-Itiro Tomonaga, Maria Goeppert Mayer |
Quantum tunneling is a quantum mechanical phenomenon where a particle has a finite probability to traverse a potential energy barrier higher than its classical kinetic energy. The effect underlies processes in nuclear physics, condensed matter, astrophysics, and chemistry and plays a central role in technologies developed by research institutions and companies worldwide. Its theoretical roots connect to foundational work in quantum theory and have influenced experimental programs at national laboratories and observatories.
Overview
Quantum tunneling was first applied to explain alpha decay by George Gamow and independently by Ronald Gurney and Edward Condon, building on quantum ideas from Max Planck, Niels Bohr, and Erwin Schrödinger. Observations of barrier penetration informed studies at facilities such as Cavendish Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, and influenced instruments devised at Bell Labs, IBM, Bell Telephone Laboratories, and Sandia National Laboratories. The phenomenon contributes to processes observed in Sun-like stars studied by Enrico Fermi and in experiments at accelerators like CERN and Fermilab. Historical debates involved figures like Werner Heisenberg, Paul Dirac, and Max Born during the formative era of quantum mechanics.
Theory
The theoretical description employs the Schrödinger equation developed by Erwin Schrödinger and operator methods elaborated by Paul Dirac and John von Neumann, with path-integral viewpoints introduced by Richard Feynman. Semiclassical approximations such as the WKB method trace to Max Born and Hendrik Kramers, and barrier transmission coefficients were analyzed by theoreticians including Lev Landau and Rudolf Peierls. Quantum tunneling links to quantization conditions used in models from Niels Bohr’s laboratory and to scattering theory advanced by Hans Bethe and Eugene Wigner. Modern theoretical frameworks incorporate many-body techniques applied by Julian Schwinger and Sin-Itiro Tomonaga and incorporate symmetry considerations explored by Maria Goeppert Mayer and C. N. Yang.
Experimental observations and measurements
Early confirmations came from studies of radioactive decay by Ernest Rutherford, Otto Frisch, and Lise Meitner and from nuclear experiments at Cavendish Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory. Precision measurements emerged from experiments at Bell Labs and IBM Research in tunneling junctions and from scanning tunneling microscopy developed through work connected to Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer at IBM Zurich Research Laboratory. Observations span low-temperature platforms at Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, quantum optics setups influenced by Raymond Chiao, and solid-state experiments at Argonne National Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Techniques link to detectors used at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and measurement standards from National Institute of Standards and Technology.
Applications
Tunneling is exploited in scanning tunneling microscope instruments pioneered by Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer, tunnel diodes developed by Leo Esaki at Sony Corporation, and in superconducting devices studied by Brian D. Josephson leading to the Josephson effect used in standards at National Physical Laboratory and National Institute of Standards and Technology. In astrophysics, tunneling explains fusion in stellar cores assessed by Arthur Eddington and modeled in stellar evolution codes used by Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar-inspired studies. Nuclear applications feature in fission research at Los Alamos National Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Emerging technologies include quantum computing research at IBM, Google, Microsoft Research, and D-Wave Systems, and nanoscale electronics at Intel Corporation and TSMC.
Mathematical formulations and models
Mathematical treatments rely on solutions to the time-independent and time-dependent Schrödinger equations due to Erwin Schrödinger and operator algebras from John von Neumann. Semiclassical approximations include the WKB approach with developments by Max Born and Harold Jeffreys, while instanton methods draw on path-integral techniques from Richard Feynman and field-theory formalisms from Julian Schwinger. Scattering matrix formulations used by Lev Landau and Ludwig Faddeev describe transmission and reflection coefficients. Many-body formulations come from the quantum statistical mechanics of Enrico Fermi and Paul Dirac; perturbative and nonperturbative techniques introduced by Hans Bethe and Rudolf Peierls are standard. Numerical approaches employ algorithms and software developed in computational centers such as Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory.
Related phenomena and extensions
Related quantum phenomena include the Josephson effect associated with Brian D. Josephson, macroscopic quantum tunneling studied in superconducting circuits researched at NIST and Caltech, and quantum transport phenomena investigated at Bell Labs and IBM Research. Extensions appear in cosmology in quantum nucleation scenarios discussed in contexts of Albert Einstein-motivated quantum cosmology and in particle physics at CERN and Fermilab via vacuum decay models considered by Sidney Coleman. Analogues occur in cold-atom experiments at MIT and Harvard University and in chemical reaction rate theories influenced by Linus Pauling and Henry Eyring. Interdisciplinary work involves collaborations across Max Planck Society, Royal Society, National Academy of Sciences, European Organization for Nuclear Research, and national laboratories.