penetration [pen-i-trey-shuhn]

tunneling

[tuhn-l]
or barrier penetration

In physics, the passage of a particle through a seemingly impassable energy barrier. Though a particle's energy may be too low to surmount a barrier in classical physics, the particle may still cross the barrier as a consequence of its quantum-mechanical wave properties. An important application of this phenomenon is in the operation of the scanning tunneling microscope.

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Penetration can refer to:

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