Lecture on

Wave Properties of Matter and Quantum Mechanics I

 Wave Motion
 Waves or Particles?
 Uncertainty Principle
 Probability, Wave Functions, and the Copenhagen Interpretation
 States in Classical Mechanics
 States in Quantum Mechanics – A Summary
 Conclusions on dual behavior of light and matter
 Particle in a Box

I thus arrived at the overall concept which guided my studies: for both
matter and radiations, light in particular, it is necessary to introduce the
corpuscle concept and the wave concept at the same time.

- Louis de Broglie, 1929

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De Broglie Waves
 Prince Louis V. de Broglie suggested that mass particles should
have wave properties similar to electromagnetic radiation.
 The energy can be written as

 Thus the wavelength of a matter wave is called the de Broglie

wavelength:

 De Broglie relation relates wave like property with particle like

property

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 Bohr’s Quantization Condition
 One of Bohr’s assumptions concerning his hydrogen atom model was
that the angular momentum of the electron-nucleus system in a
stationary state is an integral multiple of h/2π.
 The electron is a standing wave in an orbit around the proton. This
standing wave will have nodes and be an integral number of
wavelengths.

 The angular momentum becomes:

h

2 3

5.3: Electron Scattering

 Davisson and Germer experimentally observed that electrons were diffracted
much like x rays in nickel crystals.

 George P. Thomson (1892–1975), son of J. J.

Thomson, reported seeing the effects of electron
diffraction in transmission experiments. The first
target was celluloid, and soon after that gold,
aluminum, and platinum were used. The randomly
oriented polycrystalline sample of SnO2 produces
rings as shown in the figure at right.

4
 Davisson-Germer Bright spot:
experiment constructive
interference
 Diffraction of
electrons from a
nickel single crystal.
 Established that Davisson:
electrons are waves Nobel
Prize 1937

54 eV
electrons
(=0.17nm)

Phy107 Fall 2006 5 5

Wave Motion
 De Broglie matter waves suggest a further description. The
displacement of a wave is

 This is a solution to the wave equation

 Define the wave number k and the angular frequency ω as:

and

 The wave function is now: Ψ(x, t) = A sin (kx − ωt).

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Wave Properties
 The phase velocity is the velocity of a point on the wave that has a
given phase (for example, the crest) and is given by

 A phase constant Φ shifts the wave:

.

Principle of Superposition
 When two or more waves traverse the same region, they act
independently of each other.
 Combining two waves yields:

 The combined wave oscillates within an envelope that denotes the

maximum displacement of the combined waves.
 When combining many waves with different amplitudes and
frequencies, a pulse, or wave packet, is formed which moves at a
group velocity:

ugr = Δω / Δk.


vg 
k

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Fourier Series
 The sum of many waves that form a wave packet is called a
Fourier series:

 Summing an infinite number of waves yields the Fourier integral:

Wave Packet Envelope

 The superposition of two waves yields a wave number and angular
frequency of the wave packet envelope.

 The range of wave numbers and angular frequencies that produce the
wave packet have the following relations:

 A Gaussian wave packet has similar relations:

 The localization of the wave packet over a small region to

describe a particle requires a large range of wave numbers.
Conversely, a small range of wave numbers cannot produce a
wave packet localized within a small distance.

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Gaussian Function
 A Gaussian wave packet describes the envelope of a pulse wave.

d
vg 
 The group velocity is . dk

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Dispersion
 Considering the group velocity of a de Broglie wave packet yields:

 The relationship between the phase velocity and the group velocity is

 Hence the group velocity may be greater or less than the phase
velocity. A medium is called nondispersive when the phase velocity
is the same for all frequencies and equal to the group velocity.

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 Waves or Particles?
 Young’s double-slit diffraction experiment
demonstrates the wave property of light.
 However, dimming the light results in
single flashes on the screen
representative of particles.

Role of double slits – incident waves pass through

which slit? – Comparison of wave @ particle nature
13

Electron Double-Slit Experiment

 C. Jönsson of Tübingen,
Germany, succeeded in 1961
in showing double-slit
interference effects for
electrons by constructing
very narrow slits and using
relatively large distances
between the slits and the
observation screen.
 This experiment demonstrated
that precisely the same
behavior occurs for both
light (waves) and electrons
(particles).

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Which slit?
 To determine which slit the electron went through: We set up a light
shining on the double slit and use a powerful microscope to look at the
region. After the electron passes through one of the slits, light bounces
off the electron; we observe the reflected light, so we know which slit
the electron came through.
 Use a subscript “ph” to denote variables for light (photon). Therefore the
momentum of the photon is

 The momentum of the electrons will be on the order of .

 The difficulty is that the momentum of the photons used to determine

which slit the electron went through is sufficiently great to strongly
modify the momentum of the electron itself, thus changing the direction
of the electron! The attempt to identify which slit the electron is passing
through will in itself change the interference pattern.

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Wave particle duality solution

 The solution to the wave particle duality of an event is given by the
following principle.
 Bohr’s principle of complementarity: It is not possible to describe
physical observables simultaneously in terms of both particles and
waves.
 Physical observables are those quantities such as position, velocity,
momentum, and energy that can be experimentally measured. In any
given instance we must use either the particle description or the
wave description.

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Uncertainty Principle
 It is impossible to measure simultaneously, with no uncertainty, the
precise values of k and x for the same particle. The wave number k
may be rewritten as

 For the case of a Gaussian wave packet we have

Thus for a single particle we have Heisenberg’s uncertainty

principle:

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Uncertainty Principle

18
Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle

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Energy Uncertainty
 If we are uncertain as to the exact position of a particle, for example
an electron somewhere inside an atom, the particle can’t have zero
kinetic energy.

 The energy uncertainty of a Gaussian wave packet is

combined with the angular frequency relation

 Energy-Time Uncertainty Principle: .

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Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle

21

Probability, Wave Functions, and the

Copenhagen Interpretation

 The wave function determines the likelihood (or probability) of

finding a particle at a particular position in space at a given time.

 The total probability of finding the electron is 1. Forcing this

condition on the wave function is called normalization.

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The Copenhagen Interpretation
 Bohr’s interpretation of the wave function consisted of 3
principles:
1) The uncertainty principle of Heisenberg
2) The complementarity principle of Bohr
3) The statistical interpretation of Born, based on
probabilities determined by the wave function

 Together these three concepts form a logical interpretation of

the physical meaning of quantum theory. According to the
Copenhagen interpretation, physics depends on the
outcomes of measurement.

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States in Classical Mechanics

24
States in Quantum Mechanics – A Summary

25

Normalization

26
Conclusions on nature of light and
matter

27

Particle in a Box
A particle of mass “m” is trapped in a one dimensional box of width “L”

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Quantum Mechanical Review
n
L  (n  1, 2,3, )
2
2L 2L
  n 
n n
A Standing (Stationary)
Wave is a wave that
remains in a constant
position.
How wave looks like: A Sine Wave?

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Particle in a Box

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Boundary Conditions

31

Stationary States of Particle in Box

32
Probability Density of Stationary
States

33

2L
Momentum and Energy States of Particle 
n
(Quantization of Momentum and Energy)

34
Energy States of Particle in a Box

En  n 2 E1

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