PHYS 485 :: Physics Illinois :: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Schedule

EXPECT REVISIONS

Dates below are approximate. We may also cover slightly different topics late in the course, depending on how the semester goes.

Week		Topic	Materials	Assignment	Reading
1	25-Aug	Introduction; Wave and particle behaviors of light; Photoelectric effect	Slides		Townsend 1.1-1.3
	27-Aug	Quantum Properties of light; single photon interference	Slides		Townsend 1.4-1.7
2	1-Sep	Labor Day - Holiday
	3-Sep	Particles as waves – de Broglie; atomic interferometry; crystal diffraction; imaging	Slides	HW1 (Fri) HW1 solution	Townsend 2.1-2.2
3	8-Sep	Schrodinger's equation: motivation, wave functions, free particles	Slides		Townsend 2.3-2.5
	10-Sep	Schrodinger's equation: wave packets, probabilities, uncertainty principle	Slides		Townsend 2.6-2.8
4	15-Sep	Time-independent Schr. Eq, Particle in a box	Slides		Townsend 3.1-3.2
	17-Sep	Eigenfunctions and eigenvalues, time dependence	Slides	HW2 (Fri) HW2 solution	Townsend 3.3-3.4
5	22-Sep	No lecture
	24-Sep	Finite square well, wave function properties, bound states	Slides	HW3 (Fri) HW3 solution	Townsend 4.1-4.3
6	29-Sep	Wave function properties, bound states, bonding	Slides		Townsend 4.4-4.5
	1-Oct	Harmonic oscillator	Slides	HW4 (Mon) HW4 solution	Townsend 4.6-4.7
7	6-Oct	Scattering and Tunneling	Slides		Townsend 4.6-4.7
	8-Oct	Principles of QM: Entanglement, Schrodinger's cat, Nobel 2025	Slides	HW5 (Fri) HW5 solution	Townsend 5
8	13-Oct	Midterm Review (in-class)	Slides
	15-Oct	Midterm Exam (in-class)
9	20-Oct	Operators, commutators, uncertainty relations	Slides		Townsend Ch 5
	22-Oct	Time evolution; two-level systems; Schrodinger’s equation in 3D	Slides		Townsend 6.1,6.2
10	27-Oct	Angular momentum	Slides		Townsend 6.3
	29-Oct	The hydrogen atom	Slides	HW6 (Fri)	Townsend 6.4
11	3-Nov	Intrinsic spin	Slides		Townsend 6.5
	5-Nov	NMR, MRI, Identical particles	Slides	HW7 (Fri)
12	10-Nov	Identical particles; Multi-electron atoms	Slides		Townsend 7.1, 7.2, 7.3
	12-Nov	Quantum Statistical Mechanics	Slides	HW8 (Fri)	Townsend 7.2, 7.5
13	17-Nov	Bosons, Blackbody radiation, Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation	Slides		Townsend 7.6
	19-Nov	Lasers; Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC)	Slides	HW9 (Fri)	Townsend 7.7.-7.8
14	24-Nov to 28-Nov	Fall Break — Thanksgiving
15	1-Dec	Fermions: Fermi energy, white dwarfs	Slides		Townsend 7.4; 8.1
	5-Dec	Solids: Band structure, electronic properties, semiconductors	Slides		Townsend 8.1-8.3
16	8-Dec	Neutron stars, superconductors	Slides		Townsend 7.4; 8.4
	10-Dec	Wrap-up and Review	Slides	HW10
17	Exam Week	FINAL EXAM TBD