You use this quantum technology every day without knowing it!

At first glance, it may seem that the concepts of quaum technology only make sense in advanced laboratories or in huge projects of particle physics, but the fact is that every day, without paying atteion, we deal with one of the most fundameal phenomena of quaum mechanics, that is, “Quaum Tunneling” and this issue is so importa that the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics was dedicated to it!

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Quaum tunneling is actually the basis of solid state memory such as flash memory, SD memory card and solid state drives (SSD) that have become an iegral part of today’s digital life. But how does a quaum phenomenon happen outside the laboratory and inside the devices of daily life? To understand this issue, we have to go to the same quaum laboratories that discovered this phenomenon!

What is quaum tunneling?

Now we go to the heart of the quaum world, where particles on the smallest scale have their own governing laws of physics. Laws that do not fit well with classical physics. In classical mechanics, if a particle collides with an obstacle and its energy is less than the energy required to overcome the height of the obstacle, it cannot pass through it. But in the quaum world, electrons behave unpredictably and even when they are at a lower energy level than the barrier, they can still pass through the barrier! This is an amazing phenomenon Quaum tunneling is

Simply put, quaum tunneling
Credit: Cosmos Magazine

It should be said that in subatomic scales, particles are not like small balls, but have a wave-like state. The “wave function” of the electron describes the probability of its presence in differe places, and if this function has a non-zero value, even on the other side of the barrier, there is a possibility of the electron passing through the barrier. This is why electrons can pass through very thin layers of insulation. This is the basis used directly in semiconductor memories.

From Theory to Reality: A History of Quaum Tunneling

The phenomenon of tunneling was first proposed in the 1920s at the same time as the foundation of quaum mechanics. Great physicists including Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg and Erwin Schrodinger were trying to explain the behavior of particles at atomic scales. But in 1928, George Gamow was able to describe the tunneling phenomenon with a more detailed analysis to explain nuclear decay. where alpha particles, even if their energy is not enough to cross the poteial barrier, are emitted from the nucleus of atoms.

In the following decades, the concept of quaum tunneling we beyond the level of theory. In 1958, physicists Leo Esaki, Ivar Giaever, and Brian Josephson investigated the role of this phenomenon in superconducting and semiconducting materials. In this way, their research became the basis for the construction of tools to corol and corol quaum tunneling. Among these technologies, we can meion “Tunnel Diode” and later “Flash Transistors”.

From right: Josephson, Giver, Isaki
Credit: Cosmos Magazine, United Press, IBM

This technology is so revolutionary that half of the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Isaki and Giver for their experimeal discoveries about the tunneling phenomenon in semiconductors and superconductors, and the other half to Josephson for theoretical predictions about the properties of a supercurre passing through a barrier, especially the so-called Josephson effects. Now in 2025, after more than half a ceury, a new generation of scieists won the Nobel Prize in Physics for developing technologies based on this phenomenon; The technologies at the heart of most of our electronic devices.

Quaum tunneling in flash memory and SSD

To understand the role of tunneling in solid state storage, we need to understand that flash memories are made up of millions of memory cells. Each cell is esseially a “field effect transistor” (MOSFET) with an insulating layer of silicon oxide (SiO₂). In normal memories, electrons cannot pass through this layer, but in flash memories, the thickness of the layer is a few nanometers and so small that the quaum tunneling phenomenon occurs and allows electrons to pass through.

Inside each memory cell, there are two importa areas: “Floating Gate” and “Corol Gate”. When we wa to write data io the memory (programming process), a high voltage is applied to the corol gate. This voltage creates a strong electric field that causes them to pass through the oxide layer and eer the floating gate by a process known as “Fowler-Nordheim Tunneling”.

How flash memory works
Credit: Spiceworks

The presence or absence of these electrons in the floating gate determines which bit is stored 1 or 0 be When reading data, the circuit detects whether electrons are prese in that region and returns the bit value accordingly. In the erasing process, a voltage is applied in the opposite direction so that the electrons tunnel back out of the floating gate. All these processes are done without mechanical parts and this is the feature that made flash memory fast, durable and low consumption.

From flash memory to SSD: The evolution of storage

Quaum tunneling technology was first used in “electronically erasable memories” (EEPROM). In the 1980s, with the improveme of the manufacturing process and the reduction of the thickness of the oxide layer, NAND and NOR flash memories were iroduced, which were able to store data without the need for consta energy and were much more resista to mechanical shock.

Over time, this technology eered computers on a larger scale and revolutionized storage speed and stability in the form of SSD drives. SSD drives also use the same tunneling phenomenon to write and erase information, but this time in multilayer structures (3D NAND) that coain millions of cells per cubic millimeter. Thus, quaum tunneling is no longer just a laboratory phenomenon; Rather, it is the backbone of modern storage technologies.

Using 3D quaum tunnel structures in SSD
Credit: Storedbits, Digikala Mag

Today, this technology is even used in smartphones. The iernal memory of phones, both UFS type in new models and eMMC in older models, are originally built on the basis of NAND Flash and its performance depends on the phenomenon of quaum tunneling. This is why mobile phones can hold data without a consta power source and store or retrieve information at high speed.

Commercial pioneers of quaum tunneling

Although the phenomenon of quaum tunneling was theoretically known in the middle decades of the 20th ceury, its application in the form of flash memories was the result of the efforts of Toshiba and the Japanese engineer Fujio Masuoka. In the early 1980s, he was able to develop the prototype of EEPROM and then NAND Flash memory by designing memory cells based on Fowler-Nordheim tunneling. The achieveme that led to the iroduction of the first NAND flash chip by Toshiba in 1987 and marked the evolution of data storage.

At about the same time, Iel developed another type of this technology called NOR Flash, which enabled the direct execution of code from the chip. Later, with the ery of companies such as Samsung, Micron, and the Korean company SK Hynix, flash technology was upgraded from two-dimensional cells to three-dimensional structures, and the capacity and durability of memories multiplied to make quaum research of the 20th ceury one of the most profitable and widely used technologies of the 21st ceury.

Toshiba has a key role in the developme of today’s memories.
Credit: Toshiba

Nobel Physics 2025

The winners of the 2025 Nobel Prizes in Physics are researchers who have been able to develop more precise corol methods for quaum tunneling in semiconductor structures. This achieveme has helped to make chips with lower power consumption and higher speed. Their research has made future memories not only smaller and faster, but also with decades of data stability. According to the Nobel Committee, these developmes have removed the boundary between basic science and everyday technology, and have made a phenomenon that once seemed only theoretical, now in our pockets!

Winners of Nobel Prize in Physics 2025
Credit: Nobel Prize

The future of tunneling technology

Scieists are now investigating ways to combine quaum tunneling with two-dimensional materials such as graphene and molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂) to produce memories with faster write speeds and greater stability. Also, the idea of ​​real “Quaum Memory” is being developed; Where information is not stored as zeros and ones, but in “superposition” states. With this trend, technologies that were once limited to physical theories are now on track to shape the future of computing, data storage, and human life.

Companies like WeLink are pioneering the developme of commercial quaum memory.
Credit: Welinq

summary

Quaum tunneling, which once made sense only in Schrödinger’s equations and theoretical models of physics, today beats at the heart of digital devices. From small flash memory to carry information, to SSD memories that determine the speed of modern computers, all work thanks to this subtle and amazing phenomenon. This is one of the fascinating effects of physics that flows in life and now you know that every time you save a file in a memory or take a digital photo, you are actually taking advaage of one of the most mysterious effects of quaum physics.

Sources: MIT, 3D InCites, IEEE, Phys.Org