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a) The roller coaster released from A can at most make it

to C, but not to E. Its PE at A is less than the PE at D.
When the car is at the bottom, its energy is totally KE.
CD is the energy barrier that prevents the car from
making it to E.
In quantum theory, on the other hand, there is a chance
that the car could tunnel (leak) through the potential
energy barrier between C
and E and emerge on the other side of the hill at E.
(b) The wavefunction for the electron incident on a
potential energy barrier (Vo). The incident and reflected
waves interfere to give ψI(x). There is no reflected wave
in region III. In region II, the wavefunction decays with
x because E < Vo.

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The relative probability that the electron will tunnel from
region I through II to III is defined as the transmission
coefficient T, and this depends very strongly on both the
relative PE barrier height (Vo − E) and the width a of the
barrier.

Probability of tunneling

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“a” is the rate of decay of ψII(x) as expressed in Equation.
For a wide or high barrier, using αa ≫ 1 in Equation and
sinh(αa) ≈ 1/2 exp(αa)

Reflection co-efficient

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 Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM)

A conducting probe is brought so close to the surface of a

solid that electrons can tunnel from the surface of the solid
to the probe. Because the tunneling current is extremely
sensitive to the width of the potential barrier, the tunneling
current is essentially dominated by electrons tunneling to
the probe atom nearest to the surface. Thus, the probe tip
has an atomic dimension. By scanning the surface of the
material with the probe and recording the tunneling current
the user can map out the surface topology of the material
with a resolution. comparable to the atomic dimension. The
probe motion along the surface, and also perpendicular to
the surface, is controlled by piezoelectric transducers to
provide sufficiently small and smooth displacements.

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Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM)

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 Tunneling

POTENTIAL BOX: THREE QUANTUM NUMBERS