A versatile impedance boundary method of moments computational technique for solving the one-dimensional Schrodinger equation with application to quantum well and quantum wire problems

A versatile and efficient computational technique for use in the analysis of quantum wells (QWs) and a class of quantum wires with arbitrary potential profiles is presented. This expansion technique is an extension of the impedance boundary method of moments (IBMOM), which was first developed for analysis of planar optical waveguide structures. The similarity in formulation of the electromagnetic problem and the QW problem is exploited, Eigenenergies or quasi-eigenenergies, wave functions and, for quantum wires with separable wave functions, conductance are determined. No discretization or step approximation is required of potential profiles which can be described in functional form. Computational results are presented to demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency of the technique.