Introduction to Quantum Mechanics

Prerequisite- Black-body radiation, Planck’s radiation law, photoelectric effect, Bohr’s model of hydrogen atom (no derivation) and its defects, Compton effect, de Broglie hypothesis, Heisenberg’s uncertainity principle, heat capacity of solids.

Sinusoidal wave equation, Operators, Hamiltonian operator, Eigen function, Eigen values, Schrodinger wave equation and its importance, physical interpretation of the wave function, postulates of quantum mechanics.

Particle in one dimensional and two dimensional box; Schrodinger wave equation for H-atom, separation into three equations (without derivation); quantum numbers and their importance, hydrogen like wave functions, radial and angular wave functions, Spectra of Hydrogen atom.

Concept of σ, σ*, π, π* orbitals and their characteristics, introduction to valence bond model of H_2, comparison of M.O. and V.B. models, Molecular orbital theory, basic ideas- criteria for forming M.O. from A.O, construction of M.O’s by LCAO (H₂⁺ ion), calculation of energy levels from wave functions, physical picture of bonding and antibonding wave functions; hybrid orbitals – sp, sp², sp³, calculation of coefficients of A.O.’s used in these hybrid orbitals.

Dipole moment, induced dipole moment, orientation of dipoles in an electric field, dipole moment and structure of molecules; Clausius-Mossotti equation, measurement of dipole moment- temperature method and refractivity method.

Magnetic properties-paramagnetism, diamagnetism and ferromagnetism.

An overview of computational chemistry, molecular mechanics, electronic structure method, semi-empirical, ab initio and density functional methods, principle of model chemistry, desirable features of a model chemistry.