A laser pulse hits a tungsten surface on which iodine atoms have been depositied. Both the tungsten atoms and the iodine atoms lose electrons, which can then be measured.
With the help of sophisticated experiments and calculations by the Vienna University of Technology, it has now become possible to measure the duration of the famous photoelectric effect. 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 the group of Reinhard Kienberger (TU München) and research groups from Garching and Berlin, determined the duration of the photoelectric effect at a tungsten surface.
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