Tunneling effect in cavity-resonator-coupled arrays

The quantum tunneling effect （QTE） in a cavity-resonator-coupled （CRC） array was analytically and numerically investigated. The underlying mechanism was interpreted by treating electromagnetic waves as photons, and then was generalized to acoustic waves and matter waves. It is indicated that for the three kinds of waves, the QTE can be excited by cavity resonance in a CRC array, resulting in sub-wavelength transparency through the narrow splits between cavities. This opens up opportunities for designing new types of crystals based on CRC arrays, which may find potential applications such as quantum devices, micro-optic transmission, and acoustic manipulation.

A numerical method to calculate dwell time for electron in semiconductor nanostructure

To some extent,the operational quickness of semiconductor devices depends on the transmission time of an electron through semiconductor nanostructures.However,the calculation of transmission time is very difficult,thanks to both the contentious definition of the transmission time in quantum mechanics and the complicated effective potential functions experienced by electrons in semiconductor devices.Here,based on an improved transfer matrix method to numerically solve the Schr?dinger equation and H G Winful’s relationship to calculate the dwell time,we develop a numerical approach to evaluate the transmission time of an electron in semiconductor devices.Compared to the exactly resolvable case of the rectangular potential barrier,the established numerical approach possesses high precision and small error,which may be employed to explore the dynamic response and operating speed of semiconductor devices.This proposed numerical method is successfully applied to the calculation of dwell time for an electron in double rectangular potential barriers and the dependence of transmission time on the number of potential barriers is revealed.

THz trapped ion model and THz spectroscopy detection of potassium channels

Advanced molecular dynamics(MD)simulation and infrared(IR)spectroscopy have been widely adopted to reveal the detailed dynamic process of high-speed selective permeability of potassium channels.Yet these MD simulations cannot avoid the choice of empirical molecular force fields and high transmembrane voltages(as driving electric fields for ions)far exceeding physiological levels.Moreover,the IR spectroscopy method usually requires isotope labels for carbonyl groups of the channels,which may change the original permeation process.Here,we build the terahertz(THz)trapped ion model for the selectivity filter(SF)of potassium channels KcsA based on the density functional theory(DFT)calculation of ion potentials.In this model,the zero-point energy of trapped ions and quantum tunneling effect provide the physical basis for near diffusion limited permeation rates of ions and explain the high driving electric field in MD simulations.Quantitative calculations of zero-point energy and tunneling probability show that the quantum effect assisted knock-on mechanism may help to realize the physiological functions of potassium channels.Furthermore,based on the trapped ion model,we calculated the ion decoherence timescale under the influence of protein environmental noise.We use the quantum optics method to describe the interaction between THz waves and the trapped ion.Then the novel THz spectroscopy approaches through the THz resonance fluorescence and the intense field non-resonant effect are presented theoretically.These are expected to be isotope label-free detective methods of the rapid ion permeation dynamics.