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Scattering and tunnelling

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Scattering and tunnelling
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Scattering is fundamental to almost everything we know about the world, such as why the sky is blue. Tunnelling is entirely quantum-mechanical and gives rise to such phenomena as nuclear fusion in stars. Scattering and tunnelling is a free course that investigatyes examples and applications of both these fascinating concepts.

Course learning outcomes

After studying this course, you should be able to:

After studying this course, you should be able to:

  • explain the meanings of key terms and use them appropriately
  • describe the behaviour of wave packets when they encounter potential energy steps, barriers and wells
  • describe how stationary-state solutions of the Schrödinger equation can be used to analyse scattering and tunnelling
  • for a range of simple potential energy functions obtain the solution of the time-independent Schrödinger equation and use continuity boundary conditions to find reflection and transmission coefficients
  • present information about solutions of the time-independent Schrödinger equation in graphical terms.

First Published: 09/08/2012

Updated: 18/04/2019

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