Modern Physics for Engineers and Scientists

The physical technologies we need for major societal goals, from solar energy to the ways we sense, move, store and process information and design modern materials and devices, are based on ideas and concepts beyond the world of classical physics. A purely classical view gives us no model for the atoms and molecules of chemistry or of material properties such as color or electrical conductivity. We cannot understand the simplest solar cell or even the color and brightness of the sun. To move forward, we need core ideas from quantum mechanics and statistical mechanics, but introducing them often requires multiple courses and textbooks, creating a barrier for a broad range of engineers and scientists to learn these central and powerful ideas. This book introduces all these topics, economically yet rigorously, in one coherent approach suitable for engineers and scientists from a broad range of disciplines. It is well suited both for classroom use and individual study. A large number of quiz questions and problems and solutions are provided. Openly available online lectures are carefully sequenced and linked with the entire main text. David A. B. Miller (B. Sc., St. Andrews University, Ph.D., Heriot-Watt University) is the W. M. Keck Professor of Electrical Engineering Emeritus and Professor by Courtesy of Applied Physics at Stanford University. Before Stanford, he was with Bell Laboratories from 1981 to 1996. His research has covered optics in digital systems, nanophotonic structures and devices, fundamentals of optics and waves, and semiconductor optics and optoelectronics, including the discovery of the quantum-confined Stark effect and its use for optical modulators throughout modern optical networks. He has published over 300 scientific papers, holds over 75 patents, has a Google h-index of over 110, and is also the author of the textbook Quantum Mechanics for Scientists and Engineers (Cambridge, 2008). In addition to courses on quantum mechanics, optoelectronic devices, and modern physics at Stanford, he has taught open online quantum mechanics classes to over 80,000 students. He has received several awards for his research, is a Fellow of many professional societies, holds two honorary doctorates, and is a Member of the US National Academies of Sciences and of Engineering.