Improvement of the Simmons model for tunnel junctions

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Räisänen, Ilmo, Maasilta, Ilari
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Räisänen, Ilmo
Maasilta, Ilari
author_facet Räisänen, Ilmo
Maasilta, Ilari
contents The Simmons model is a well-known and widely used model for the elastic tunneling current of a metallic tunnel junction, and fitting it to electrical measurements can be used to estimate thicknesses and heights of the tunnel barriers. We present here an improvement of the Simmons model, deriving new more accurate analytical formulas for the tunneling current density and conductance at finite voltage and temperature. We demonstrate that our conductance-voltage formulas are much closer to the Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin approximation than the Simmons model and its commonly used simplified parabolic approximation. In addition, we demonstrate the practical use of our model, by fitting it to experimental tunnel junction conductance-voltage data and showing a sizeable difference from the Simmons model.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_16337
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Improvement of the Simmons model for tunnel junctions
Räisänen, Ilmo
Maasilta, Ilari
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
Superconductivity
The Simmons model is a well-known and widely used model for the elastic tunneling current of a metallic tunnel junction, and fitting it to electrical measurements can be used to estimate thicknesses and heights of the tunnel barriers. We present here an improvement of the Simmons model, deriving new more accurate analytical formulas for the tunneling current density and conductance at finite voltage and temperature. We demonstrate that our conductance-voltage formulas are much closer to the Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin approximation than the Simmons model and its commonly used simplified parabolic approximation. In addition, we demonstrate the practical use of our model, by fitting it to experimental tunnel junction conductance-voltage data and showing a sizeable difference from the Simmons model.
title Improvement of the Simmons model for tunnel junctions
topic Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
Superconductivity
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.16337