Metamaterial inspired perfect tunneling in semiconductor heterostructures

TL;DR

This paper explores perfect tunneling in semiconductor heterostructures by drawing an analogy with electromagnetic metamaterials, demonstrating that such phenomena can be achieved and potentially enabling new applications.

Contribution

It introduces a formal analogy between electromagnetic waves and quantum mechanics to show perfect tunneling in semiconductor heterostructures using the Kane model.

Findings

Perfect tunneling can occur in 1D semiconductor heterostructures.

Metamaterial-inspired phenomena are realizable in semiconductor systems.

Potential for novel semiconductor device applications.

Abstract

In this paper we are using formal analogy of electromagnetic wave equation and Schrodinger equation in order to study the phenomenon of perfect tunneling (tunneling with unitary transmittance) in 1D semiconductor heterostructure. Using the Kane model of semiconductor we are showing that such phenomenon can indeed exist, resembling all the interesting features of the analogous phenomenon in classical electromagnetism in which metamaterials (substances with negative material parameters) are involved. We believe that these results can open up the way to interesting applications in which the metamaterial ideas are transfered into semiconductor domain.