PHOTON-ASSISTED TRANSMISSION THROUGH AN OSCILLATING QUANTUM-WELL - A TRANSFER-MATRIX APPROACH TO COHERENT DESTRUCTION OF TUNNELING

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 V1cos(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 {V1,} of the driving field, which can be explained in terms of zeros of fractional Bessel functions, J(V1/Latin small letter h with stroke), where is a structural parameter. The effect shows a strong similarity to the coherent destruction of tunneling recently found in strongly driven quartic double wells. © 1995 The American Physical Society.