Wenn ein hochgeladenes Ion (Mitte) zwischen den Kohlenstoffatomen der Graphen-Schicht hindurchfliegt, kann es Energie abgeben, die dann auf mehrere Kohlenstoffatome verteilt wird.
A riddle, which has been bugging atomic physicists for more than 20 years, has been solved. The solution should help to understand the helpful effects of ionizing radiation in cancer therapy. A highly charged ion (center) passing through graphene can transfer energy to several carbon atoms simultaneously. The "hollow atoms", which are being produced in the labs of TU Wien (Vienna) are quite exotic objects. Their electrons are in a state of extremely high energy (so called Rydberg states), but when they are shot through another material, they can get rid of this energy in a matter of femtoseconds (millionths of a billionth of a second). For a long time, physicists have been speculating how this process can be so fast. Experiments with xenon ions and graphene have now shown that the reason is an effect which has been hugely underestimated: the so-called "interatomic coulomb decay".
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