Studies of resonant tunneling in heterostructures and reduced-dimensionality systems; electronic transmission across an interface of different crystals (1985-91).
The basic useful properties of double-barrier electronic resonators, such as their negative differential resistance, have been explained in a sequential tunneling picture, which is more general than the Fabry-Perot picture assumed previously. This reformulation has led to more flexible device designs, especially for three-terminal applications of resonant tunneling. I have been also concerned with the study of double quantum well systems, where I proposed and analyzed an experiment capable of direct observation of the time development in electron tunneling. In a related study, I proposed and analyzed an experiment in which dipolar polarization oscillations are excited in coupled quantum wells, generating terahertz radiation. These experiments have been subsequently carried out by my colleagues and generated much interest. In the course of this work I became interested in the question of how realistic is the conventional treatment of boundary conditions on electronic wave-functions in heterostructures. I have analyzed the envelope wavefunction matching problem at the interface of materials with different band structures for a model of two Kronig-Penney crystals joined together. This exactly soluble theoretical model has shed light on certain aspects of this difficult and practically important problem.
Key papers: 38, 62, 69, 70, 90
Where the numbers refer to the attached list of Publications
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