Quantum tunnelling
Efecto túnel cuántico
- Date
- 1928 · confidence high
- Place
- University of Göttingen, Germany
- Credited to
- George Gamow; Ronald Gurney; Edward Condon
- People
- 👤 Edward Condon1902–1974👤 George Gamow1904–1968
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What was discovered
A particle can cross an energy barrier that it classically could not overcome, which explains alpha decay and the Geiger-Nuttall law. The first success of quantum mechanics in the nucleus.
Gamow (Göttingen) and Gurney and Condon (Princeton) published it independently in 1928; Hund had described it in molecules in 1927.
What it led to
- Nuclear fusion in stars (overcoming the Coulomb barrier)
- Tunnel diode and scanning tunnelling microscope
- Josephson effect
- Flash memory
Built on
- Schrödinger equation (wave mechanics)1926
- Alpha rays and the Geiger-Nuttall law
- Field emission (Fowler-Nordheim)