Quantum tunneling can allow particles to pass through barriers
University of Innsbruck / Harald Rich
When charged hydrogen particles and deuterium atoms collide, they can exchange a proton through a quantum process called tunneling, but this only happens once in every 10 billion collisions.
Quantum tunneling is a strange effect that allows particles such as electrons to travel through barriers in nano-sized devices or protons to move between particles. The latter is important for chemistry, as proton tunneling can change the configuration of molecules even when they do not have enough energy for the conventional reaction that…
