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Quantum Mechanics in Nanoscience and Engineering covers both elementary and advanced quantum mechanics within a coherent and self-contained framework. Undergraduate students of physics, chemistry and engineering will find comprehensive coverage of their introductory quantum mechanics courses, and graduate students will gain an understanding of additional tools and concepts necessary to describe real world phenomena. Each topic presented is first motivated by an experimental technique, phenomenon or concept derived directly from the realm of nanoscience and technology. The machinery of quantum mechanics is described and reinforced through the perspective of nanoscale phenomena, and in this manner practical and fundamental questions are raised and answered. The main text remains fluent and accessible by leaving technical details and mathematical proofs to guided exercises. Introductory readers may overlook these exercises, while rigorous students can benefit from reading the guidance or solving the exercises in full to strengthen and consolidate their understanding of the material.
List of contents
Preface. 1. Motivation; 2. The state of a system; 3. Observables and operators; 4. The Schrödinger equation; 5. Energy quantization; 6. Wave function penetration, tunneling and quantum wells; 7. The continuous spectrum and scattering states; 8. Mechanical vibrations and the harmonic oscillator model; 9. Two-body rotation and angular momentum; 10. The hydrogen-like atom; 11. The postulates of quantum mechanics; 12. Approximation methods; 13. Many-electron systems; 14. Many-atom systems; 15. Quantum dynamics; 16. Incoherent states; 17. Quantum rate processes; 18. Thermal rates in a bosonic environment; 19. Open quantum systems; 20. Open Many-Fermion systems; Index.
About the author
Uri Peskin is Professor of Chemistry and a member of the Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute and the Helen Diller Quantum Center at Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. His expertise lies in atomic and molecular physics, and scientific computing, with emphasis on quantum dynamics on the nanoscale. He was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of California at Berkeley, and a visiting professor at Harvard and Freiburg universities. His research and teaching of quantum mechanics won him several awards, including the Yanai Prize for Excellence in Academic Education.
Summary
In this self-contained and rigorous book, undergraduate students of physics, chemistry and engineering will find comprehensive coverage of their introductory quantum mechanics courses, and graduate students will find important discussion of the advanced tools and concepts necessary to describe real world phenomena in nanoscience and technology.
