ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with the purely quantum mechanical picture of charge transport, which is based on the quantum mechanical fluxes associated with the wavelike propagation of particles. It introduces the numerical treatment of quantum phenomena in semiconductor structures and devices. The chapter discusses tunneling, followed by an introduction of the relevant concepts in quantum mechanics for dealing with quantum transport and applications to tunneling. It examines the transfer matrix approach, followed by a discussion of the Landauer formula, some of the quantum phenomena observed in transport in low-dimensional structures, and a scattering matrix approach to transport. The chapter considers the models which are based upon a single-band, effective-mass Schrodinger equation. The simplest case of quantum transport in devices is to consider the scattering of the electron wave function by a spatially varying potential through the solution of the single-particle Schrödinger equation.
