Measurement of tunneling time via electron interferometry

After many decades, our understanding of the tunneling time across a barrier at the theoretical and experimental levels remains unsatisfactory and subject to debate. We describe an electron interference experiment by which the tunneling time across a symmetric potential barrier can be obtained from the phase shift introduced by the barrier to the interference pattern. We compare these phase shifts as predicted by three competing views of the tunneling time. (C) 2004 American Institute of Physics.