Eur. Phys. J. B 29, 147-152 (2002)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2002-00273-y

Tunneling time in magnetic barrier structures

¹ Department of Physics, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, PR China
² Center for Advanced Study, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, PR China

Corresponding author: ^a fzhai@castu.tsinghua.edu.cn

Received: 4 March 2002
Revised: 22 May 2002
Published online: 17 September 2002

Abstract

We adopt the group velocity approach to the issue of tunneling time in two configurations of magnetic barrier structures, which are arranged with identical or unidentical building blocks. The effects of an external electric field are also taken into account. The tunneling time in magnetic barrier structures is found to be strongly dependent on the magnetic configuration, the applied bias, the incident energy as well as the longitudinal wave vector. The results indicate that for electrons with equal energy but different incident angles, the tunneling processes are significantly separated in time within the same magnetic barrier structure. In the configuration arranged with unidentical building blocks, there exists obvious asymmetry of tunneling time in two opposite tunneling directions. Such a discrepancy of the tunneling time varies distinctly with the longitudinal wave vector and the applied bias.