Tunneling of light

Near-death experiences (NDEs) are sometimes reported by people who have nearly died or have been clinically dead and revived. During the experience, people sometimes have the sensation of floating above their bodies and seeing a tunnel of light. 

Ghulinyan M, Oton CJ, Gaburro Z, Pavesi L (2005) Zener tunneling of light waves in an optical superlattice. Phys Rev Lett 94 127401... 

The idea of different optimal distances for tunneling of light and heavy isotopes and the corresponding increase in the activation energy was formulated in [277,449]. In these works, however, the authors used a model repulsion potential whose parameters were unknown. Therefore, it was not possible to obtain any quantitative estimates of the effects which should be expected in real systems. 

G. Nimtz, A. Enders, and H. Spieker, in A. van der Merwe and A. Garuccio (Eds.), Wave and Particle in Light and Matter, Proc. Trani Workshop (Italy, Sept. 1992), Plenum, New York (H. Aichmann and G. Nimtz Tunnelling of a FM-Signal Mozart 40 ). 

In 1958, Franz [45] and Keldysh [46] independently theoretically predicted the absorption by a semiconductor, placed in an electric field, of light quanta which have an energy less than the width of the forbidden gap. The effect is connected with interband tunneling (Fig. 20). The valence band electron tunnels from point xl to point 3c, then it absorbs a quantum with a frequency lo < Eg (Eg is the width of the forbidden gap) and further tunnels to point x2. Using the law of conservation of energy and the law of conservation of imaginary momentum (see the previous section), it is easy to show that light absorption at point 3c, which lies exactly between points acj and x2, is optimal. Consequently... 

Electron tunneling accompanied by the emission or absorption of light... 

In the previous sections we considered the processes of non-radiative electron tunneling. Along with them, processes are possible when, in the course of one elementary act, the electron tunnels from a donor to an acceptor and simultaneously radiates a quantum of light [7]. Using the... 

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