Tunneling time of electromagnetic radiation trough an ideal plasma layer

Abstract

In this paper, we derived the relation for the phase time of electromagnetic radiation tunneling through an ideal plasma layer in a dielectric for frequencies ω below the plasma frequency ωp in the limit of low transparency of the layer. Within the framework of the model under consideration, the tunneling time is found to be independent of the layer thickness and determined only by the ω and ωp values. For lower frequencies the tunneling time tends to the limit defined by the inverse plasma frequency which allows us to treat the tunneling process in this case as a ‘splash’ of a plasma layer as a whole entity to form the transmitted radiation. Since the transmittance of the plasma layer is very low, the result obtained does not allow us to speak about superluminal energy transfer.