Effects of barrier traversal time on escape rate through a small-capacitance tunnel junction

Abstract

This paper describes self-consistent determination of the transfer-energy-dependent escape rate and barrier traversal time of electrons under the influence of the electromagnetic environment. This rate lets us examine dissipative and nondissipative tunneling rate separately and its integral over the transfer energy gives the total escape rate that is obtained by the instanton technique. It is found that the escape rate is exponentially enhanced as the capacitance of the junction is reduced.