Quantum Mechanics for Electrical Engineers

[amenhotep]

Hello,
I'm already done with undergraduate Electrical Engineering and was quite disappointed not to have studied Quantum Mechanics. I have some free time now and would like to know whether its possible to get a good grasp of the subject the same way physicists do. I'm not talking about popular science QM, I'm talking about the QM that'll broaden my knowledge in Semiconductor Physics, nanoelectronics etc. What I'm unsure of is the level of Maths needed. As I mentioned, I'm just an EE. So, the type of Maths that I'm familiar with is: Linear Algebra, Calculus up to introduction into calculus of variations, ODE, some PDE and some Complex Analysis.
I would also like recommendations of self study books that are reasonable for my background. Once, I decided to learn real analysis and someone recommended the book by Rudin. I had to put down the book before going anywhere. So, I'm not asking for any advanced text to learn about the nuances of QM.
Thank You.

 

[analogdesign]

Herbert Kroemer wrote an excellent text on QM for EEs. The math you've got is fine. My first QM book was French and Taylor and I thought it was pretty good.

For 99% of the work EEs do, classical models (even if they have some QM fairy dust) are sufficient. I know some people in device design (e.g. LED and laser development) need to do a bit of QM but they usually have software solve their problems using perturbation methods.

I imagine some people working on quantum computation need QM but everyone I've personally met working on that is a physicist.

 

[jasonRF]

You have enough math to learn quantum mechanics. Some EE departments actually teach quantum mechanics courses as undergrad electives (my dept. offered 2 semesters), so you should be fine. Our department primarily used Liboff's book but that was ~20 years ago; so don't go out and get Liboff. In any case you certainly have an okay background to learn undergrad quantum mechanics.

jason