Tuesday, 24 November 2020

quantum mechanics - Tunneling v. Hopping


Can someone explain the difference between hopping and tunneling? The context I'm considering is conduction in semiconductors, specifically between impurity states within the bandgap. It's always been my understanding that hopping is tunneling. Variable range hopping and nearest neighbor hopping, as I understand it, are both forms of tunneling between overlapping states (for example, see http://igitur-archive.library.uu.nl/dissertations/2002-0806-101243/c4.pdf). However, in papers such as DJ Thouless 1974 Electrons in Disordered Systems and the Theory of Localization, hopping and tunneling are described as two different processes. I guess I don't exactly understand what "hopping" is supposed to mean, with respect to charge transport.




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