Optically induced resonant tunneling of electrons in nanostructures

TL;DR

This paper develops a theoretical framework for resonant electron tunneling in nanostructures driven by high-frequency electromagnetic fields, revealing conditions for perfect transparency at resonance.

Contribution

It introduces a novel theory modeling driven barriers as stationary two-barrier systems with quasi-stationary states, enabling analysis of resonant tunneling under electromagnetic irradiation.

Findings

Resonant tunneling occurs when electron energy matches quasi-stationary states.

The driven barrier can be treated as a stationary two-barrier potential.

Electromagnetic fields can induce full transparency at resonance.

Abstract

We developed the theory of elastic electron tunneling through a potential barrier driven by a strong high-frequency electromagnetic field. It is demonstrated that the driven barrier can be considered as a stationary two-barrier potential which contains the quasi-stationary electron states confined between these two barriers. When the energy of an incident electron coincides with the energy of the quasi-stationary state, the driven barrier becomes fully transparent for the electron (the resonant tunneling). The developed theory is applied to describe electron transport through a quantum point contact irradiated by an electromagnetic wave.