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 ${\mathit{V}}_1$cos(ωt) 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 {${\mathit{V}}_1$,ω} of the driving field, which can be explained in terms of zeros of fractional Bessel functions, ${\mathit{J}}_{\pm \nu }$(γ${\mathit{V}}_1$/ħω), where γ is a structural parameter. The effect shows a strong similarity to the ‘‘coherent destruction of tunneling’’ recently found in strongly driven quartic double wells.