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An alternative tunneling displacement transducer was developed that increases the tunneling gap to about 100 A without sacrificing sensitivity. The increase of the tunneling gap reduces the risk of sensor damage caused by the collision between electrodes. Moreover, it also eliminates the error in apparent displacement caused by short range atomic forces and surface elasticity-induced anomalies.

An improvement of the Airy's function version of the transfer-matrix method for resonant tunneling eliminates numerical problems in low-applied voltages and inefficiency to calculate the energies of quasi-bound states. The method is based on the exact solution of Schrodinger's equation and is useful in checking other computational techniques used in the theory of resonant tunneling. The transmission coefficient, I-V characteristics of finite superlattices, and energies of the bound and quasi-bound states calculated by different methods agree well.

A resonant tunneling emitter that is quantum mechanically coupled to a vacuum gap may be used in vacuum electronics and sensor systems. Such devices exhibit enhanced current levels as compared to a Fowler-Nordheim field emitter. The vacuum gap thickness and applied voltage also promotes an almost monoenergetic distribution of electron emissions creating ideal tunneling current oscillations.