Competing quantum tunneling processes of heavy and light particles in isocyanic acid radical anions
Jingjing Tang, Wenbin Fan, Lina Wang, Xin Jiang, Beibei Sun, Yangyu Zhou, Wei Fang, Xiaoqing Zeng, Mingfei Zhou · 2025
Read Competing quantum tunneling processes of heavy and light particles in isocyanic acid radical anions by Jingjing Tang, Wenbin Fan, Lina Wang, Xin Jiang, Beibei Sun, Yangyu Zhou, Wei Fang, Xiaoqing Zeng, Mingfei Zhou (2025) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-12660882.txt.
Description
Jingjing Tang and co-authors report a 2025 chemistry study on quantum tunneling in a small charged molecule. Tunneling lets a particle pass through a barrier it should not cross, and lighter particles usually tunnel faster. The molecule here, an isocyanic acid radical anion, breaks that rule of thumb.
The team made two shapes of the molecule inside solid neon and tracked them with infrared light. An electron escaping the molecule tunneled more slowly than the shape change from cis to trans form. That shape change is driven by the heavy carbon atom bending the molecule. Theory calculations backed the odd result: the carbon path has a lower barrier and a shorter tunneling distance. The work refines how chemists think about mass and tunneling.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Jingjing Tang, Wenbin Fan, Lina Wang, Xin Jiang, Beibei Sun, Yangyu Zhou, Wei Fang, Xiaoqing Zeng, Mingfei Zhou |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2025 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 42 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |