Nonresonant electron and hole tunneling times in GaAs/Al0.35Ga0.65As asymmetric double quantum wells.

Nonresonant carrier tunneling is investigated by time-resolved and time-averaged optical methods for a series of samples with various barrier thicknesses. The electron tunneling times decrease exponentially with the decrease of barrier thickness from 8 to 3 nm, and the trend is well described by a semiclassical model. Additional efficient hole tunneling is observed in the 3 nm barrier sample, and the time constant is of the order of 50 ps.