Essential Quantum Mechanics for Electrical Engineers

Authored by a lecturer of quantum mechanics for students of electrical engineering and informatics for over 25 years, this textbook is scientifically sound and well-written, striking a balance between the formal mathematics necessary and informal prose.
The introduction summarizes the basic concepts of classical physics and points out some of its failures, based on phenomena connected to lighting technology. These are analyzed in detail in the subsequent three chapters. Chapter 5 goes beyond the duality principle, and explains the particle concept of quantum mechanics and its consequences for electrical engineering, while chapters 6-8 introduce the mathematical construction used for describing the state of a particle and to predict its properties. The next two chapters present two examples of using this framework, with applications in light emitting diodes, infrared detectors, quantum cascade lasers, Zener diodes and flash memories. The final chapters then discuss some consequences of quantum mechanics for the chemical properties of atoms and for other many-electron systems, also providing a short insight into the potential hardware for quantum information processing.
Among the host of didactic features are learning objectives, chapter summaries, self-testing questions, and problems with solutions, while the two appendices summarize the knowledge in classical physics and mathematics needed for this book.

Peter Deak is currently Professor of Theoretical Semiconductor Physics at the University of Bremen, Germany, and head of the Electronic Materials Group in the Bremen Center of Computational Materials Science. After obtaining his PhD at the Eotvos University of Budapest, Hungary, and post-doctoral positions at SUNY, Albany, the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart and the University of Kaiserslautern, Germany, he obtained a tenure as professor of surface physics at the Budapest Institute of Technology and Economics in 1993. He relocated to Germany in 2003 where he took up his current position in Bremen. Peter Deak has more than 25 years of experience in teaching physics to undergraduates of electrical engineering and informatics.