Course syllabus

Course-PM: Welcome to the course Quantum Engineering

FKA133 Quantum engineering lp1 HT24 (7.5 hp). The course is offered by the department of Microtechnology and Nanoscience - MC2 and starts with first physics lecture (by the examinator) in class, in MC2 room "Luftbryggan" (A810), at 10:00 on Tuesday, September 3, 2024.

All course material is available digitally.

An overview of  the organization of the course summarized on a schedule one-pager.

People and contact details

• Examinator and physics lecturer: Per Hyldgaard, MC2, hyldgaar@chalmers.se
  
• Chemistry lecturer and chemistry recitation leader: Martin Rahm, Chemistry, martin.rahm@chalmers.se
• Physics recitation leader: Didrik Palmqvist, MC2, didrikp@chalmers.se
  
• Physics-project advisor: Raul Quintero Monsebaiz, MC2, raulq@chalmers.se
  
• Chemistry-project advisor: Marco Cappelletti, Chemistry, marcocap@chalmers.se
  

Course purpose

This Quantum Engineering course is given to provide knowledge that electrical engineers, material scientists, physicists, and chemists need as they enter the field of nanoscale physics and technology.

Schedule

TimeEdit-FKA133-HT2024 -- and summary on a schedule one-pager.

Lectures and recitations will almost always be given in MC2 room A810 "Luftbryggan" or A820 "Fasrummet" (See time edit)
Exceptions is/are:

• An physics-project-feedback session after first physics-project
  deadline, around October 14, 2024 (time and place to be set by
  the physics course assistant Raul Quintero Monsebaiz)
• The Chemistry project introduction, September 23, 2024, 8-10 in KD1 (Tentative; Details to be announced), organized by Marco Cappelletti.
   

Course literature

The course material will consist of "handouts" (including lecture notes) available from the course home page. They define and cover the relevant topics in (parts of) four main course books plus background text books.  All four main course books are available from the Chalmers library; in almost all cases in the form of electronic books (pdf-files), once you are registered at Chalmers. The same is true for the background books mentioned below.

You may not need to buy the paper version of the text book as we will only be using parts of the books and our own lecture notes are posted and will be posted here on the canvas webpage of the course.

Main physics materials: parts of Y. B. Band and Y. Avishai: Quantum Mechanics with applications to nanotechnology and information science, Elsevier and for the physics project: parts of D. M. Sullivan: Quantum Mechanics for Electrical Engineers, IEEE and Wiley.

For background/support on notes on the quantum language, we direct attention to either one of these books:

R. B Griffith: Consistent Quantum Theory, Cambridge University Press, 2001 (chapters 3-5 on Dirac notation) or J.J. Sakurai: Modern Quantum Mechanics, Addison-Wesley, 1994 (chapter 1) or A.F.J. Levi: Applied Quantum Mechanics, Cambridge University Press, 2006 (chapter 5).

Main Chemistry books: Chapters 12, 13 and 17 of Raymond Chang: Physical Chemistry for the Chemical Sciences (e-book) and parts of E.V. Anslyn and D. A. Dougherty: Modern Physical Organic Chemistry, University Science (hand outs).

Additional Chemistry materials, mostly for background and supplement, are: 1) parts of Frank Jensen: Introduction of Computation Chemistry (hand outs) and 2) Selected original research articles (hand outs).

Note that you are not required to buy any of these books. We will only be using parts and we will have both physics lecture notes and the chemistry lectures available here at Canvas.

We do mention that S.M. Lindsay: Introduction to Nanoscience, Oxford University Press, gives a nice overview of the cross-disciplinary field of nanoscience. Buying a copy is not required.

Also, we do recommend that you invest in (in order of priority) Nordling and Österman: Physics Handbook and Råde and Westergren: Mathematics Handbook (for example, available from the Chalmers book store or second hand). These will be useful throughout your study and many students at Chalmers have them (meaning that some teachers will assume that you have them). Any version will do, even decade old ones. However, keep them clean, except for very obvious typos: they may be then be allowed if we get to have an on-campus written exam for this course -- but only if kept clean!

Finally, some optional reading. Many of you will know complex Fourier transform from science (and most of you know it anyway from music or in other contexts). Fourier transform is not part of the curriculum nor required, just useful as an analogy when discussing wave packets.. For those of you who want to read some short summary of the math (in a music context)  the canvas presentation now included an optional-reading module "Some Fourier Transform background" with links to a music-based introduction.

Course design

The course consist of Physics and Chemistry lectures (generally 3 double-hour sessions per week) plus Physics and Chemistry recitations (generally 1 double-hour session per week). 

In addition the course has both a physics and a chemistry project. Both are computational and you have access to a supervisor for the project work.  Completion of two project reports is mandatory.

The physics learning is organized into 6 areas with associated lectures and exercises. Please see the individual physics modules. There are and will be lecture notes for each physics and chemistry lecture. Notes reflecting the planned-lecture context will be available at least the day before the lecture (but may be updated). You should study those before the lecture.

The chemistry learning is organized in Concepts, with a reading plan summarized here. Again, notes are and will generally be available ahead of the lecture and you should study those.

The suggested focus for the recitations will be posted on this learning platform the day before, and you should also regularly check for updates.

Course organization: please see list of lectures, recitations, and project-introduction sessions and project-report deadlines.

Changes made since the last occasion

This year the course will again be given fully on-site.

The course update (from FKA132 to FKA133, again done as of HT23) means that
we now have two officially registered moments that must
BOTH must be passed (as will be tracked in LADOK):

A) The chemistry plus physics projects: Pass/NoPass x2.
The report for these pair of project must BOTH be approved by
our two course assistants so clear moment "A)".

B) The course exam comprising 9/30 worth of chemistry questions and
21/30 worth of physics questions.

For moment "B)" a score of 50% (15 points our of 30 points total)
is required to pass the exam, at grade "3". Scoring at or beyond
20/25 points will increase the Exam score to grade "4/5".

The Exam grade also determines the overall course score but,
again, passing both "A)" and "B)" is required to pass the course.

NOTE: Students who took the course FKA132 will be able to take the shared FKA133/FKA132 resit exams (January and August events) during 2024-2026 only.

Detailed changes:

*) We have moved the 2-week chemistry part up one week to ensure that you have longer time for the chemistry projects while we also make sure that the chemistry project introduction is done only (immediately) after the completion of the chemistry part.

*) The chemistry project is completely reworked (starting with the FKA133 start in HT23, but that was not announced then).

*) The physics project concerns the same physics task (numerical determination of bound states) as in HT2023 but the emphasis
of the report (i.e., criteria for passing the physics project) has changed slightly. We still want a presentation and discussion of the solution  idea and of the code and of the results (as described in the project documents). However, we now hand out a working
matlab code in week 1 but in return we now also require a mathematical derivation of the code steps as well as a discussion
of the physics logic of the solution in terms of traveling waves.

 

Learning objectives and syllabus

The goal of the course is to give students theoretical and technical skills to use quantum theory as tool in their continued studies and research. After completing the course in Quantum Engineering the student will have: acquired familiarity with basic tools of quantum mechanics, practical skills in solving standard quantum mechanical problems, understood and applied concepts of quantum tunneling, understood and used second quantization for the harmonic oscillator, gained numerical skills in treating scattering off and transmission through barriers, use the Lewis model of chemical bonding, apply valence bond and molecular orbital theory to common bonding situations in organic chemistry, and predict the structure of and the electron distribution in organic molecules.

The emphasis is on a practical approach to quantum mechanics rather than a formal treatment. Topics covered, either in depth or less stringent, include:

- Basic quantum theory for model potentials and barriers

- Basic theory of quantum transport

- Lewis structures – the language of chemistry

- Chemical bonding and molecular structure

- Quantum description of molecules & materials: Approximation/advanced computational methods

- The origin of intermolecular interactions and their role in the formation of molecular clusters

- Harmonic oscillator, coherent states and second quantization

- Time-independent and time-dependent perturbation theory

- Electrons in magnetic fields, spin

- Many-particle theory, quantum statistics, fermions and bosons

- Graphene and layered materials

Examination form

The final grade will be based on passing a written exam and on the mandatory completion of two (computer-oriented) project works and reports.

The purpose of the written exam is to test that you have reached Physics and Chemistry  learning objectives in terms of theoretical knowledge, through lectures/notes/books and though problem solving (at recitations and by additional preparation).

The purpose of the two computationally oriented projects is to help you better learn the theory and to test that you have reached the learning objectives in terms of simple technical application skills, that you can apply the quantum-engineering theory in practice. Note that completion and approval (by relevant course assistants) of a report  is mandatory for both projects. That is, you can only get an overall passing grade if you both pass the written exam and get both of your project reports approved.

Grades at the written examination will be given as follows:

15 out of 30 possible points: Grade 3

20 out of 30 possible points: Grade 4

25 out of 30 possible points: Grade 5

The written examination will be given on October 30, 2024 at 14:00-18:00. You need to sign up centrally in advance for the examination via Studentportalen.

Re-sit examinations (combined for FKA132/FKA133 for now) will be given during the re-examination period in January 2025 provided that you contact the examinator (Per) directly by email (with subject heading: "January Resit exam FKA133/FKA132") and in the re-examination period in August 2025 provided you contact the examinator (Per) by email (with subject heading: "August Resit exam FKA133/FKA132"). For either such registration you must send the email before the deadline for the general resit-exam registration (see Chalmers schedule). Be sure sure to mark such emails with the "FKA133" identifyiers I have stated just before for each specific case. This is to insude that we find you email and to ensure that you do not loose a chance for a resit exam due to misunderstandings.

Allowed during the examination are: dictionaries, “Beta”, Physics Handbook [by Nordling and Österman], one handwritten A4 paper (both sides) , and a Chalmers-approved calculator. All reference material, except a single sheet of A4 paper with handwritten notes, must be clean from added notes.