近日，美国斯坦福大学的David A. B. Miller与美国耶鲁大学的Owen D. Miller等人合作，揭示了波的隧穿逃逸。相关研究成果已于2024年12月3日在国际知名学术期刊《自然—光子学》上发表。

通过考虑来自有限球形体积的波，该研究团队清晰地展示了波开始隧道逃逸的现象，这既为任意体积定义了有限数量的良好耦合通道，也解释了随后耦合强度迅速下降的原因。该方法适用于从纳米光子学和小型射频天线，到成像光学的所有尺寸范围。

它提供了从天线和小物体常见的多极展开，到大型光学的极限平面和倏逝波的统一视角，表明所有这些波都可以通过某种程度的传播逃逸出去，必要时通过隧道效应，并给出了精确的衍射极限。

据悉，波在通信、信息处理和传感中的应用需要清楚地了解，有多少强耦合通道或自由度存在于空间体积内外，以及耦合如何在更大的数字中下降。数值结果是可能的，并且存在一些启发式的方法，但是对于任意体积还没有简单的物理图像和解释。

附：英文原文

Title: Tunnelling escape of waves

Author: Miller, David A. B., Kuang, Zeyu, Miller, Owen D.

Issue&Volume: 2024-12-03

Abstract: Applications of waves in communications, information processing and sensing need a clear understanding of how many strongly coupled channels or degrees of freedom exist in and out of volumes of space and how the coupling falls off for larger numbers. Numerical results are possible, and some heuristics exist, but there has been no simple physical picture and explanation for arbitrary volumes. By considering waves from a bounding spherical volume, we show a clear onset of a tunnelling escape of waves that both defines a limiting number of well-coupled channels for any volume and explains the subsequent rapid fall-off of coupling strengths. The approach works over all size scales, from nanophotonics and small radiofrequency antennas up to imaging optics. It gives a unified view from the multipole expansions common for antennas and small objects to the limiting plane and evanescent waves of large optics, showing that all such waves can escape to propagation to some degree, by tunnelling if necessary, and gives a precise diffraction limit.

DOI: 10.1038/s41566-024-01578-w

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41566-024-01578-w

来源：科学网  小柯机器人