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Quantum tunnelling
Quantum tunnelling (or tunneling) is the quantum-mechanical effect of transitioning through a classically-forbidden energy state. Consider rolling a ball up a hill. If the ball is not given enough velocity, then it will not roll over the hill. This makes sense classically. But in quantum mechanics, objects do not behave like classical objects, such as balls, do. On a quantum scale, objects exhibit wavelike behavior. For a quantum particle moving against a potential hill, the wave function describing the particle can extend to the other side of the hill. This wave represents the probability of finding the particle in a certain location, meaning that the particle has the possibility of being detected on the other side of the hill. This behavior is called tunneling; it is as if the particle has 'dug' through the potential hill.
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Matter & Energy News
August 8, 2026
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Aug. 7, 2026 Scientists have demonstrated that heat can move through a crystal in focused, wave-like rays at room temperature instead of spreading randomly. The breakthrough could make it possible to route heat around sensitive parts of next-generation chips and ...
Aug. 6, 2026 A new hollow nanoreactor mimics living cells to make hydrogen peroxide more efficiently using visible light. Its light-trapping cavity and proton-shuttling shell could open new possibilities for cleaner chemical manufacturing and artificial ...
Aug. 4, 2026 Scientists have successfully generated electricity with a hydrogen turbine that produces its own pressure through detonation waves instead of relying on a mechanical compressor. The breakthrough could unlock dramatically more efficient power systems ...
Aug. 4, 2026 A new 3D printing technique can produce exceptionally hard tungsten carbide cobalt while using less of its expensive raw materials. By softening rather than fully melting the material, researchers created defect-free samples with industrial-grade ...
Aug. 3, 2026 Researchers have found a way to build much larger “twisted” oxide materials while precisely controlling how their atomic layers line up. Because these materials can be made over large areas and transferred onto different surfaces, the technique ...
Aug. 1, 2026 A surprisingly simple change could make sodium-ion batteries far more powerful while opening the door to turning seawater into drinking water. Researchers at the University of Surrey found that sodium vanadium oxide performs much better when its ...
July 31, 2026 A new chemical process can transform three of the most common plastics into high-purity hydrogen without sorting them first. The technique operates at much lower temperatures than traditional ...
July 31, 2026 Scientists have built the first all-optical photonic time crystal, allowing them to reshape the behavior of terahertz light at extraordinary speeds. The breakthrough could open the door to ultrafast computing, smarter communication systems, advanced ...
July 30, 2026 Engineers have transformed a notoriously brittle cobalt-aluminum compound into a material that is both extremely strong and capable of bending without breaking. Their nanoscale design produced a ...
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July 30, 2026 Physicists have uncovered a surprising limit to electrical resistance caused by particles colliding. Using ultracold potassium atoms trapped in a grid of light, researchers created a highly ...
July 29, 2026 Ultrafast X-rays revealed how a molecule converts absorbed light into motion in just trillionths of a second. Individual atoms recorded different stages of the process, opening a powerful new window ...
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