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Atomic electron transition is a change (or jump) of an
electron The electron (, or in nuclear reactions) is a subatomic particle with a negative one elementary electric charge. Electrons belong to the first generation of the lepton particle family, and are generally thought to be elementary partic ...
from one
energy level A quantum mechanical system or particle that is bound—that is, confined spatially—can only take on certain discrete values of energy, called energy levels. This contrasts with classical particles, which can have any amount of energy. The ...
to another within an
atom Every atom is composed of a nucleus and one or more electrons bound to the nucleus. The nucleus is made of one or more protons and a number of neutrons. Only the most common variety of hydrogen has no neutrons. Every solid, liquid, gas ...
or artificial atom. It appears discontinuous as the electron "jumps" from one quantized energy level to another, typically in a few
nanosecond A nanosecond (ns) is a unit of time in the International System of Units (SI) equal to one billionth of a second, that is, of a second, or 10 seconds. The term combines the SI prefix ''nano-'' indicating a 1 billionth submultiple of an SI unit ...
s or less. It is also known as an electronic (de-)excitation or atomic transition or quantum jump. Electron transitions cause the emission or absorption of
electromagnetic radiation In physics, electromagnetic radiation (EMR) consists of waves of the electromagnetic (EM) field, which propagate through space and carry momentum and electromagnetic radiant energy. It includes radio waves, microwaves, infrared, (visible ...
in the form of quantized units called
photon A photon () is an elementary particle that is a quantum of the electromagnetic field, including electromagnetic radiation such as light and radio waves, and the force carrier for the electromagnetic force. Photons are Massless particle, massless ...
s. Their statistics are Poissonian, and the time between jumps is
exponentially distributed In probability theory and statistics, the exponential distribution is the probability distribution of the time between events in a Poisson point process, i.e., a process in which events occur continuously and independently at a constant average ...
. The damping time constant (which ranges from
nanosecond A nanosecond (ns) is a unit of time in the International System of Units (SI) equal to one billionth of a second, that is, of a second, or 10 seconds. The term combines the SI prefix ''nano-'' indicating a 1 billionth submultiple of an SI unit ...
s to a few seconds) relates to the natural, pressure, and field broadening of spectral lines. The larger the energy separation of the states between which the electron jumps, the shorter the
wavelength In physics, the wavelength is the spatial period of a periodic wave—the distance over which the wave's shape repeats. It is the distance between consecutive corresponding points of the same phase on the wave, such as two adjacent crests, tr ...
of the photon emitted.


History

Danish physicist
Niels Bohr Niels Henrik David Bohr (; 7 October 1885 – 18 November 1962) was a Danish physicist who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum theory, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922 ...
first theorized that electrons can perform quantum jumps in 1913. Soon after,
James Franck James Franck (; 26 August 1882 – 21 May 1964) was a German physicist who won the 1925 Nobel Prize for Physics with Gustav Hertz "for their discovery of the laws governing the impact of an electron upon an atom". He completed his doctorate i ...
and
Gustav Ludwig Hertz Gustav Ludwig Hertz (; 22 July 1887 – 30 October 1975) was a German experimental physicist and Nobel Prize winner for his work on inelastic electron collisions in gases, and a nephew of Heinrich Rudolf Hertz. Biography Hertz was born in Hamb ...
proved experimentally that atoms have quantized energy states. The observability of quantum jumps was predicted by
Hans Dehmelt Hans Georg Dehmelt (; 9 September 1922 – 7 March 2017) was a German and American physicist, who was awarded a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1989, for co-developing the ion trap technique (Penning trap) with Wolfgang Paul, for which they shared one-h ...
in 1975, and they were first observed using trapped ions of mercury at
NIST The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce whose mission is to promote American innovation and industrial competitiveness. NIST's activities are organized into physical sc ...
in 1986.


Recent discoveries

In 2019, it was demonstrated in an experiment with a superconducting artificial atom consisting of two strongly-hybridized transmon qubits placed inside a readout resonator cavity at 15 m K, that the evolution of some jumps is continuous, coherent, deterministic, and reversible. On the other hand, other quantum jumps are inherently unpredictable.


See also

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Burst noise Burst noise is a type of electronic noise that occurs in semiconductors and ultra-thin gate oxide films. It is also called random telegraph noise (RTN), popcorn noise, impulse noise, bi-stable noise, or random telegraph signal (RTS) noise. It c ...
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Ensemble interpretation The ensemble interpretation of quantum mechanics considers the quantum state description to apply only to an ensemble of similarly prepared systems, rather than supposing that it exhaustively represents an individual physical system. The advocate ...
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Fluorescence Fluorescence is the emission of light by a substance that has absorbed light or other electromagnetic radiation. It is a form of luminescence. In most cases, the emitted light has a longer wavelength, and therefore a lower photon energy, ...
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Glowing pickle demonstration Applying line voltage across a pickled cucumber causes it to glow. A moist pickle contains salt as a result of the pickling process, which allows it to conduct electricity. Sodium (or other) ions within the pickle emit light as a result of ato ...
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Molecular electronic transition Molecular electronic transitions take place when electrons in a molecule are excited from one energy level to a higher energy level. The energy change associated with this transition provides information on the structure of a molecule and determin ...
, for molecules *
Phosphorescence Phosphorescence is a type of photoluminescence related to fluorescence. When exposed to light (radiation) of a shorter wavelength, a phosphorescent substance will glow, absorbing the light and reemitting it at a longer wavelength. Unlike fluo ...
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Quantum jump A quantum jump is the abrupt transition of a quantum system (atom, molecule, atomic nucleus) from one quantum state to another, from one energy level to another. When the system absorbs energy, there is a transition to a higher energy level (exci ...
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Spontaneous emission Spontaneous emission is the process in which a quantum mechanical system (such as a molecule, an atom or a subatomic particle) transits from an excited energy state to a lower energy state (e.g., its ground state) and emits a quantized amount ...
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Stimulated emission Stimulated emission is the process by which an incoming photon of a specific frequency can interact with an excited atomic electron (or other excited molecular state), causing it to drop to a lower energy level. The liberated energy transfers to th ...


References


External links

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Part 2

"There are no quantum jumps, nor are there particles!"
by H. D. Zeh, ''Physics Letters'' A172, 189 (1993). *
"Surface plasmon at a metal-dielectric interface with an epsilon-near-zero transition layer"
by Kevin Roccapriore et al., ''Physical Review B'' 103, L161404 (2021). {{DEFAULTSORT:Atomic Electron Transition Atomic physics Electron states