  We discuss in some detail the self-similar potentials of Shabat and
Spiridonov which are reflectionless and have an infinite number of bound
states. We demonstrate that these self-similar potentials are in fact shape
invariant potentials within the formalism of supersymmetric quantum mechanics.
In particular, using a scaling ansatz for the change of parameters, we obtain a
large class of new, reflectionless, shape invariant potentials of which the
Shabat-Spiridonov ones are a special case. These new potentials can be viewed
as q-deformations of the single soliton solution corresponding to the
Rosen-Morse potential. Explicit expressions for the energy eigenvalues,
eigenfunctions and transmission coefficients for these potentials are obtained.
We show that these potentials can also be obtained numerically. Included as an
intriguing case is a shape invariant double well potential whose supersymmetric
partner potential is only a single well. Our class of exactly solvable
Hamiltonians is further enlarged by examining two new directions: (i) changes
of parameters which are different from the previously studied cases of
translation and scaling; (ii) extending the usual concept of shape invariance
in one step to a multi-step situation. These extensions can be viewed as
q-deformations of the harmonic oscillator or multi-soliton solutions
corresponding to the Rosen-Morse potential.
