Kwant: A software package for quantum transport

Abstract

Kwant is a Python package for numerical quantum transport calculations. It aims to be a user-friendly, universal, and high-performance toolbox for the simulation of physical systems of any dimensionality and geometry that can be described by a tight-binding model. Kwant has been designed such that the natural concepts of the theory of quantum transport (lattices, symmetries, electrodes, orbital/spin/electron-hole degrees of freedom) are exposed in a simple and transparent way. Defining a new simulation setup is very similar to describing the corresponding mathematical model. Kwant offers direct support for calculations of transport properties (conductance, noise, scattering matrix), dispersion relations, modes, wave functions, various Greens functions, and out-of-equilibrium local quantities. Other computations involving tight-binding Hamiltonians can be implemented easily thanks to its extensible and modular nature. Kwant is free software available at http://kwant-project.org/. © 2014 IOP Publishing Ltd and Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft.