Photon-assisted transmission through an oscillating quantum well: A transfer-matrix approach to coherent destruction of tunneling.

Abstract

Based on a trasfer-matrix formalism, photon-assisted tunneling is studied in a strongly driven double-barrier tunneling diode. Two scenarios are considered: A driving potential ${\mathit{V}}_{1}$cos(\ensuremath{\omega}t) acting on the central quantum well, which may be realized with electrostatic gates close to the quantum well, and a driving electric field across the diode generated by a laser field. Strong quenching of the transmission probability is found for certain parameters {${\mathit{V}}_{1}$,\ensuremath{\omega}} of the driving field, which can be explained in terms of zeros of fractional Bessel functions, ${\mathit{J}}_{\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}\ensuremath{\nu}}$(\ensuremath{\gamma}${\mathit{V}}_{1}$/\ensuremath{\Elzxh}\ensuremath{\omega}), where \ensuremath{\gamma} is a structural parameter. The effect shows a strong similarity to the ``coherent destruction of tunneling'' recently found in strongly driven quartic double wells.