This book provides an introduction to the rapidly developing field of quantum transport. Quantum transport is an essential and intellectually challenging part of nanoscience; it comprises a major research and technological effort aimed at the control of matter and device fabrication at small spatial scales. The book is based on the master course that has been given by the authors at Delft University of Technology since 2002. Most of the material is at master student level (comparable to the first years of graduate studies in the USA). The book can be used as a textbook: it contains exercises and control questions. The program of the course, reading schemes, and education-related practical information can be found at our website www.hbar-transport.org.

We believe that the field is mature enough to have its concepts – the key principles that are equally important for theorists and for experimentalists – taught. We present at a comprehensive level a number of experiments that have laid the foundations of the field, skipping the details of the experimental techniques, however interesting and important they are. To draw an analogy with a modern course in electromagnetism, it will discuss the notions of electric and magnetic field rather than the techniques of coil winding and electric isolation.

We also intended to make the book useful for Ph.D. students and researchers, including experts in the field. We can liken the vast and diverse field of quantum transport to a mountain range with several high peaks, a number of smaller mountains in between, and many hills filling the space around the mountains.