Photoemission delay could hold relevance for laboratory equipment manufacturers

Laboratory equipment manufacturers may have to revise their research and development procedures with the news that electrons do not leave an atom instantly when hit with a laser.

The previous assumption was that there is no delay in the process, according to the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics; however, the electron can actually take tens of attoseconds to leave the atom.

As a result, the research models used by laboratory equipment manufacturers when looking at potential semiconductors may be inaccurate.

Even when fed the necessary statistics to introduce a delay, existing models reach a figure around one-fifth of the actual time taken for electron emission.

Much of the discrepancy arises from the fact that all electrons in an atom are affected when a laser is directed at it, making calculations sophisticated and difficult to process.

The institute focuses its research on the ways in which matter and light interact when subjected to extreme conditions, such as high-precision spectroscopy of hydrogen.