Physics Asked by fintallrik on December 21, 2020
TL;DR: I want to calculate the transmission coefficient of a particle travelling into a finite double potential barrier system and I think I’ve got stuck by the fact that I have 9 unknown variables (amplitudes) and only 8 equations. How do I manage to solve this?
Problem
I have a particle (an electron) with energy $E$ travelling in from the left into an area with two potential barriers. The potential is defined by
$$ V(x) = V_1cdot[Theta(x)- Theta(x-a_1)] + V_2cdot[Theta(x-(a_1 + L) – Theta(x-(a_1 + a_2 + L]$$
Where $Theta(x)$ is the Heaviside step function, $a_1$ is where the first barrier stops (i.e its length), $L$ is the width of the separation between the two barriers and $a_2$ is the width of the second barrier.
The known quantities are:
The goal is to calculate the transmission coefficient $T$.
My work
I solved the equations for the different sections and got the following solutions to the time-independent Schrödinger equation
$$ Psi_1 = Ae^{ikappa x} + Be^{-ikappa x}
Psi_2 = Ce^{ilambda x} + De^{ilambda x}
Psi_3 = Fe^{ikappa x} + Ge^{-ikappa x}
Psi_4 = He^{mu x} + Ie^{-mu x}
Psi_5 = Je^{ikappa x}$$
Where $kappa = frac{sqrt{2mE}}{bar{h}}, lambda = frac{sqrt{2m(E-V_1)}}{bar{h}}, mu = frac{sqrt{2m(V_2-E}}{bar{h}}$ and ${A,..,J}$ are the amplitudes of the different waves. I have excluded the second solution to $Psi_5$ as I assume there is no wave travelling in from the right.
If I apply boundary conditions to $Psi_i$ and $Psi_i’$ at the points $x = {0, a_1, a_1 + L, a1 + a2 + L}$ I get 8 separate equations, and the goal is to calculate $T = frac{|F|^2}{|A|^2}$. As I have 9 unknown variables and 8 separate equations I do not see how I will be able to solve this. Any help is appreciated and if possible I don’t want the answer outright, just some guidance. 🙂
Well, since scattering states are not normalizable, the wavefunction has an arbitrary overall normalization factor. The reflection coefficient $R=frac{|B|^2}{|A|^2}$ and transmission coefficient $T=frac{|J|^2}{|A|^2}$ depend only on the relative amplitudes. In other words, we can e.g. put the amplitude $A=1$ of the incoming right-mover w.l.o.g.
Answered by Qmechanic on December 21, 2020
Get help from others!
Recent Answers
Recent Questions
© 2024 TransWikia.com. All rights reserved. Sites we Love: PCI Database, UKBizDB, Menu Kuliner, Sharing RPP