ELECTRONS, it turns out, can hop between atoms in a mere 320 quintillionths of a second.
Alexander F枚hlsich at the University of Hamburg, Germany, and his colleagues used what is known as a 鈥渃ore-hole clock鈥� to time electrons as they zipped from a sulphur atom to an adjacent ruthenium metal surface. The researchers fired X-rays at the sulphur, causing an electron near the atom鈥檚 centre to become excited and jump, leaving behind an empty 鈥渃ore-hole鈥� in its place. 鈥淭he clock begins to tick at the moment this core-hole is created,鈥� says F枚hlisch.
When the team found that the core-hole was filled in about 3.2 脳 10-16 sec onds, by another electron, they looked for the electron that had hopped out. They found it in a nearby ruthenium atom, meaning that it had gone across in a bit less time than it took to fill the core-hole (Nature, vol 436, p 373).
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