@@ -2,22 +2,30 @@ Quantum transport simulations made easy
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Kwant is a Python package for numerical calculations on tight-binding models
with a strong focus on quantum transport. It is designed to be flexible, easy to
use, while not sacrificing performance.
Tight-binding models are ubiquitous in quantum physics and they can be found in a vast variety of
situations including graphene, quantum Hall effect, topological insulators, superconductivity, semi-conductors,
spintronics, molecular electronics, any combination of the above and many other cases.
While all these systems have very distinct physics, their mathematical description is very close.
Kwant has been designed so that their computer implementation is also very close: changing a few lines of code is all that is needed to go from one example to another.
Kwant does not use the traditional ‘input' files often found in scientific softwares. Instead, one write small python
programs (benefiting from python simple and very powerful syntax) to "make" the sample and "measure" its quantum properties
(conductance, density of states, etc). Learning to use Kwant is very fast, no more than a couple of hours are needed to get started.
You can find how easy it is to use in practice by going through the `tutorial </docs/tutorial/>`_ or Kwant main `article </paper>`_.
Kwant is provided to the physics community as an open source free software (we merely ask you to quote Kwant article in scientific publications where
Kwant was used). Below is a rapid survey of a few applications of Kwant.
with a strong focus on quantum transport. It is designed to be flexible and
easy to use, while not sacrificing performance.
Tight-binding models are ubiquitous in quantum physics and they can be used to
describe a vast variety of systems and phenomena, such as semiconductors,
metals, graphene, topological insulators, quantum Hall effect,
superconductivity, spintronics, molecular electronics, any combination of the
above and many other things. While all these systems exhibit very distinct
physical behavior, the underlying mathematical description is very similar.
Kwant has been designed so that the computer simulation of various physical
systems and phenomena is within reach of one software package.
Kwant does not use the traditional input files often found in scientific
software packages. Instead, one writes simple Python programs (using the
Python's simple and very expressive syntax) to define the system and calculate
its quantum properties (conductance, density of states, etc). Kwant was
designed to be easy to use, and accessible for people without expertise in
numerics. It also comes with a detailed hand-on `tutorial </docs/tutorial/>`_
and the Kwant `paper </paper>`_, which describes the guiding principles
underlying its design.
Kwant is provided to the physics community as an open source free software (we
merely ask you to quote Kwant article in scientific publications where Kwant
was used). Below a few research applications of Kwant are shown.
conductance of a Corbino disk in a quantum Hall regime
