Tunneling Across a Ferroelectric

摘要

The phenomenon of electron tunneling has been known since the advent of quantum mechanics, but it continues to enrich our understanding of many fields of physics, as well as offering a route toward useful devices. A tunnel junction consists of two metal electrodes separated by a nanometer-thick insulating barrier layer, as was first discussed by Frenkel in 1930 (7). Although forbidden by classical physics, an electron is allowed to traverse a potential barrier that exceeds the electron's energy. Theelectron therefore has a finite probability of being found on the opposite side of the barrier. A famous example is electron tunneling in superconducting tunnel junctions, discovered by Giaever, that allowed measurement of important properties of superconductors (2, 3).