Tunneling through a total internal reflection layer

The tunneling phenomenon known as frustrated total internal reflection is described in classic texts and research papers, but students are generally not exposed to the concept in standard optics or electromagnetics courses. It is shown that the tunnel effect may serve as the basis of a nonresonant lossless optical filter. The resolution capabilities of this filter are rather limited, and the best performance that may be achieved is shown to be independent of the specific indexes of refraction or polarization