The WKB Approximation * General theory revisited = Classical turning points * Determination of bound-state energies => Triangular well * Tunneling => Schottky-barrier tunneling => MOS Capacitors Tunneling => Connection FormulasGeneral Theory + In many situations one is interested in solving the Schrédinger equation in situations where the potential energy is a SLOWLY-VARYING function of position * In this situation conventional approaches such as the use of T-matrices CANNOT be applied and the WKB APPROXIMATION is often used instead * To develop this approach we begin by writing the Schrédinger equation as a ES voyres= ene) an * Motivated by our knowledge of the form of the wavefunction for a particle that moves in the presence of a CONSTANT potential we write the wavefunction as y(xy= eo (22.2) FOR FREELY.MOVING PARTICLES WE REMEMBER THAT THE WAVEFUNCTION VARIES AS yx) = 0General Theory ing this form for the wavefunction into the Schrédinger equation we obtain OY -i7 BE-vayek (22.3) * The quantity k(x) that we define here may be thought of as a LOCAL wavenumber * While Eq. 22.3 is EXACT to take our analysis any further we will need to introduce ‘some appropriate approximations => Since the potential is assumed to be slowly varying we neglect the SECOND derivative in Eq. 22.3 and INTEGRATE to obtain Mo) = J kode (22.4) => This approximation may alternatively be rewritten as ak (22.5)