Physical realization of photonic Klein tunneling

Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Napoli, Complesso Universitario di Monte S. Angelo via Cinthia, I-80126 Naples, Italy, EU

^a sesposit@na.infn.it

Received: 31 March 2011
Accepted: 12 May 2011

Abstract

General physical conditions for the occurrence of photonic Klein tunneling are studied, where (controlled) spontaneous emission from the devices considered plays a key role. The specific example of a simple dielectric slab bounded by two dielectric half-spaces with arbitrary refractive indices is worked out quite in detail, the measured reflection and transmission probabilities being calculated analytically. It is found that, in given cases, the measured reflection probability may be arbitrarily large (for large incident wavelengths) irrespective of the fact that the transmission probability is exponentially suppressed or not. Other interesting features of photonic Klein tunneling driven by (controlled) spontaneous emission are as well envisaged for practical applications.