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Visualizing Particle-in-a-Box
Wavefunctions
By Edmund L. Tisko Department of Chemistry University of Nebraska at Omaha Omaha, NE 68182 [email protected]
Translated and modified from the MathCAD document by Alex Grushow 2004
© Copyright 2003, 2005 by the Division of Chemical Education, Inc., American Chemical Society. All rights reserved. For classroom use by teachers, one copy per student in the class may be made free of charge. Write to JCE Online, [email protected], for permission to place a document, free of charge, on a class Intranet.
ü Prerequisites
This document was constructed for use in a physical chemistry computational modeling laboratory using Mathematica 5.1. To use the worksheet, students need a minimal amount of experience with the program. Instructions have been written as to allow the student to construct the worksheet keystroke by keystroke. Students should have a rudimentary understanding of the particle-in-a-box problem as covered in texts such as: Physical Chemistry, 3rd ed., Keith J. Laidler and John H. Meiser, Houghton Mifflin Co., (1999). Physical Chemistry, 6th ed., Peter W. Atkins, W. H. Freeman and Co., (1998). Physical Chemistry, 3rd ed., Robert J. Silbey and Robert A. Alberty, John Wiley and Sons, (2001). Physical Chemistry, 5th ed., Ira N. Levine, McGraw-Hill, (2002).
ü Learning Goals
- Seeing a variety of particle-in-a-box wavefunctions with different potential functions.
- Seeing how the application of boundary conditions forces the energy levels of the particle-in-a-box to be quantized.
- Verifying the relationship between quantum number and energy for a simple particle-in-a-box.
- Verifying the relationship between the length of the box and energy for a simple particle-in-a-box.
- Seeing how the requirement for a finite wavefunction forces tunneling into a potential barrier.
- Seeing how increasing the potential energy decreases the kinetic energy and thus decreases the curvature of the wavefunction.
- Gaining an intuitive feel for an iterative numerical process.
ü Learning Objectives
At the end of this exercise you should be able to:
- Compare and contrast the wavefunctions for a particle in a box when V=0 throughout the box to the situations where there is a step potential in the box or a barrier potential in the box.
- Explain how the boundary conditions forces the energy levels of the particle-in-a-box to be quantized.
- Verify the relationship between quantum number and energy for a simple-particle-in-a-box.
- Verify the relationship between the length of the box and energy for a simple particle-in-a-box.
- Describe tunneling with respect to the barrier and step potential in a box. Explain how the wavefunctions behave under these conditions.
- Correlate curvature of a wavefunction with the energy associated with the wavefunction and the potential and kinetic energy components of the total energy.
ü Instructor Note
The laboratory procedure follows below. Instructors notes are given in yellow text boxes. Students should be given a student version to use during a laboratory session. Instructors annotations are removed in the student version.
a measure of the particle's kinetic energy.
In this laboratory, we will be examining the effects of the potential energy function on the energies and wavefunctions of a particle trapped in a box. For each investigation, four steps will be followed.
- We will learn how to construct the potential function.
- We will construct a simple algorithm that will allow us to use Mathematica 's differential equation solvers to solve the Schrödinger equation.
- We will learn how to plot the solution of the Schrödinger equation so that we can see the results.
- We will vary the energy of the particle so that solution meets the correct boundary conditions.
ü Laboratory Procedure
ü Construction of the Potential energy
Construction of the potential function is done using the Which function of Mathematica.
V@x_D := Which@x < 0, 400, x > 4, 400, True, 0D
This function will generate a value of 400 when x is greater than 4 and less than 0. Otherwise V[x]=0.
Below we have plotted the potential function. Note that the "walls" of the function are not infinite because Mathematica will not evaluate this value in a function. The height of 400 is sufficient to carry out our tasks provided the energy of the system does not get too large.
Plot@V@xD, 8 x, −1, 5<, Axes → False, FrameLabel → 8 x, V<, Frame → True, PlotRange → 8 −10, 500<, PlotPoints → 150 D
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ü Solving the Schrödinger equation
To solve the Schrödinger equation for a particle-in-a-box, we will use a built-in numerical differential equation solver function, NDSolve. Before this can be done we need to pick a trial Energy for the system.
This energy will be varied to make sure the boundary conditions discussed in the introduction are met.
The first argument ( Y ''[x]==2(V[x]-Energy)Y[x] ) in the NDSolve is the second order differential equation we are solving. The next two are boundary conditions. The first makes sure that the value of the wavefunction is zero at the left edge of the potential barrier. The second is a dummy condition. The next argument indicates the function to be solved, Y. This is followed by the independent variable and the interval in which to solve the differential equation. The last arguments specify the method of solving the equation.
Instructor Note
The range of the solution must correlate to the size of the box. Students may forget.
The initial value of the first derivative can be set to any nonzero positive number. The value changes the amplitude of the wavefunction when plotted but does not change the energy.
The number of evaluation points affects the accuracy of the numerical wavefunction. An adequate number of points is especially important for evaluating the function when tunneling is involved. The examples in this exercise use 800 evaluation points. For slower computers, at least 300 points should be used to find a reasonably accurate wavefunction.
ü Part A
Assignments:
Your first assignment is to find the ground state energy of the above potential well to eight decimal places. Then find the energies of next nine states to five decimal places by choosing correct values for the energy. Note the expression for energy given in the introduction. Also notice that we have assumed, for these calculation, atomic units where h=1 and me =1. You should also plot the first ten wavefunctions. Describe the relationship between quantum number of the state and the shape of the wavefunction.
Next, find the first five energies of a well that is half as wide and the first five energies of a well that is twice as wide. Try to find the numerical relationship between the three sets of energies.
Other questions to consider:
- How does the curvature of the wavefunction change as the energy of the particle in increased?
- What is the relationship between the number of nodes of the wavefunction and the quantum number?
Instructor Note
The number of acceptable energy eigenvalues that permits the wavefunction to meet the boundary conditions is infinite. Thus, many eigenvalues can be found. The student can be assisted in finding an inclusive set of eigenvalues between any two quantum numbers (e.g., between 1 and 10) by the number of nodes seen in the wavefunction. The number of nodes of the wavefunction is equal to the quantum number plus one when the sides of the box are included as nodes. Once a set of eigenvalues has been found, the students are asked to find a relationship between the energies and the quantum number. The correct energy eigenvalues yield the analytic relationship that the energies are proportional to the square of the quantum number. Students should be able to find the inverse square relationship between the energy eigenvalues and the length of the box.
ü Part B
Step Barrier Potentials
In this portion the lab, you will examine the effects of putting a step barrier into the box. Below we have modified our potential to be a step barrier well potential.
V@x_D := Which@x < 0, 400, x > 4, 400, 2 < x < 4, 20, True, 0D Plot@V@xD, 8 x, −1, 5<, Axes → False, FrameLabel → 8 x, V<, Frame → True, PlotRange → 8 −10, 100<, PlotPoints → 150 D
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Assignments:
With the new potential function above, use the method developed in the Solving the Schrödinger equation section to find the first ten energies of this system and plot the wavefunctions. Make observations about any tunneling effects. Make qualitative comparisons with the single well potential. Note: Depending on the potential chosen you may need to find the energy to more than five decimal places to find a finite wavefunction.
Examine the effect of the step height and of the step width by constructing potentials of your choosing. Find the first five energies and wavefunctions of your trials and make qualitative comparisons with the step barrier potential above.
Choose a step potential and adjust the energy eigenvalue in an attempt to keep the wavefunction from tunneling into the barrier. (In the example above, you try to make the wavefunction at x = 2 equal to zero.) Observe what happens to the overall wavefunction as you make the attempt.
Other questions to consider:
- How does the height of the step affect the energy of a state?
- How does the height of the step affect the curvature of the wavefunction?
- How does the width of the step affect the energy of a state?
- How does the width of the step affect the shape of the wavefunction?
- Rationalize the above observations in terms of changes in the kinetic energy of the particle.
- What happens to the curvature as the energy of particle approaches the energy of the step? What are the implications of the change in curvature for the probability density of the particle?
- What happens to the ground state wavefunction if you try to keep it in the classically allowed region?
Instructor Note
Hopefully, the students will make two qualitative observations about the wavefunctions for a step potential.
- The wavefunctions for energies less than the step height demonstrate the phenomenon of tunneling. As the energy of
Other questions to consider:
- How does the height of the barrier affect the energy of a state?
- How does the height of the barrier affect the curvature of the wavefunction?
- How does the width of the barrier affect the energy of a state?
- How does the width of the barrier affect the shape of the wavefunction?
- Rationalize the above observations in terms of changes in the kinetic energy of the particle.
- How do the energy levels group as the barrier height increases? Extrapolate what would happen for an extremely large barrier height.
- How is the tunneling of the particle affected with barrier height and barrier width?
- What happens to the energies and wavefunctions if the two wells are highly asymmetrical?
Instructor Note
The tunneling phenomenon is illustrated also with the solutions to the barrier potential. The students examine the solutions to a barrier potential where the barrier is centered in the box. Students are asked to find the first five energies and qualitatively compare them to the potential of the same width with no barrier. Increasing the height or the width of the barrier increases the energy eigenvalues when compared to energy eigenvalues of the simple box. As in the case of the step potential, the students should find this result sensible since increasing the potential energy of the particle will increase the total energy of the particle.
The observations about the wavefunction that the students make for the step potential are valid for the barrier potential: the penetration of the tunneling particle increases as the particle energy approaches the barrier height and the curvature of wavefunction decreases over the barrier.
Degeneracy occurs when the barrier has infinite height. When the barrier height is finite, the lack of barrier potential energy acts as a perturbation and thus forces the "degenerate" states to split according degenerate time-independent perturbation theory The splitting becomes greater as the perturbation becomes greater, that is, the splitting of the nominally degenerate energy levels increases as the total energy of the particle approaches the energy of the barrier height.
