Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by mrpg on Saturday September 22 2018, @03:59PM   Printer-friendly
from the read-and-find-out dept.

How long does a quantum jump take?

It was one of the crucial experiments in quantum physics: when light falls on certain materials, electrons are released from the surface. Albert Einstein was the first to explain this phenomenon in 1905, when he spoke of "light quanta" -- the smallest units of light that we call photons today.

In tiny fractions of a second, an electron of the material absorbs a photon, "jumps" into another state and leaves the surface. This "photoelectric effect" is so fast that until now it has mostly been regarded as instantaneous -- as a sudden change of state, from one moment to the next. However, new measurement methods are so precise that it has now become possible to observe such a process and to measure its duration precisely. A team from the Vienna University of Technology, together with research groups from Garching, Munich and Berlin, determined the duration of the photoelectric effect at a tungsten surface. The results were published in the journal Nature.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 23 2018, @11:35PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 23 2018, @11:35PM (#739001)

    "quantum ... observe ... measure ... precisely"

    Found the folks working on the Heisenberg Compensators. Anybody know if they've taken an interest in the whale population leately?