Course syllabus

Course-PM

MCC185 From quantum optics to quantum technologies lp1 HT23 (7.5 hp).

The course is offered by the Department of Microtechnology and Nanoscience (MC2).

Contact details

Witlef Wieczorek

role: examiner, teacher

email: witlef.wieczorek@chalmers.se

group website: https://wieczorek-lab.com

phone: 031-7726772

room: A726, MC2

Simone Gasparinetti

role: teacher

email: simoneg@chalmers.se

group website: https://202q-lab.se

phone: 031 772 65 73

room: A530, MC2

Hannes Pfeifer

role: teacher

email: hannespf@chalmers.se

group website: https://wieczorek-lab.com

phone: 031-7726772

room: A415, MC2

Claudia Castillo-Moreno

role: teaching assistant

email: claudiac@chalmers.se

room: A533, MC2

Simon Sundelin

role: teaching assistant

email: simsunde@chalmers.se

room: A533, MC2

Kunal Helambe

role: lab supervisor

email: helambe@chalmers.se

Student representatives

The following students agreed to act as student representatives of the course:

• Halldór Jakobsson, haj51@hi.is
• Ludvig Nordqvist, Ludvig.Nordqvist@hotmail.com
• Niklas Oertel, niklas.oertel@rwth-aachen.de
• Manuel Sebastian Torres Hernandez, manuelsebastian.torreshernandez@student.kuleuven.be

The student representatives can collect any feedback from all students concerning the course (administration, content, etc). They can bring this feedback forward to the course teachers during the lecture, at the midterm meeting and summarize the feedback at the final meeting after the course has finished.

More information for the student representatives can be found here.

Course purpose

The course introduces how one can describe, manipulate, and detect quantum mechanical systems such as single atoms and photons, and how advances in the control and measurement of these systems are driving the so-called second quantum revolution through the four pillars of quantum technologies: quantum computation, quantum simulation, quantum communication, and quantum sensing. This revolution is being pushed forward by large research initiatives worldwide, such as the Wallenberg Centre for Quantum Technology (WACQT) in Sweden, of which Chalmers is the main node, the EU Quantum Flagship in Europe, and many more. The course gives an overview of this very active field of research and connects via lectures, exercise sessions, and a laboratory session in a state-of-the-art facility to ongoing research on quantum mechanical superconducting circuits, microwave photons, and optomechanical systems.

Course content

In the first part of the course, we will study the foundations of quantum optics, that is, how matter (atoms) interacts with an electromagnetic field at the quantum level (photons). We will study both the semi-classical and the full quantum light-matter interaction and get to know the different quantum states of light and their quantum optical description. In experiments that implement these building blocks of quantum optics, one can use a diverse set of physical systems, for example, atoms, trapped ions, or artificial atoms such as superconducting microelectronic circuits that possess quantum mechanical properties like atoms.

In the second part, we will apply the formalism of quantum optics to various physical platforms including superconducting circuits, trapped ions, cold atoms, nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond, and mechanical resonators. Here the goal is to understand how quantum effects can be exploited to build novel devices and to use novel measurement techniques, that are key for all four pillars of quantum technology. Quantum computers allow us to perform certain computations or simulations by using quantum algorithms that are faster than the corresponding classical algorithms. The development of quantum simulators can be traced back to R. Feynman's intuition that carefully engineered quantum systems could be used to efficiently simulate materials and molecules, potentially leading to breakthroughs in material science and chemistry. Quantum communication systems allow performing quantum key distribution over absolute safe channels and can connect quantum computers over large distances. Finally, quantum sensors take advantage of quantum phenomena such as state superposition and squeezing to build sensors, imaging systems, and metrological standards with unprecedented accuracy.

Schedule

The up-to-date schedule can be found here and is also available in TimeEdit.

Course literature

Lecture notes, hand-outs.

The following literature is good but not strictly necessary to purchase (available at Chalmers library as e-books):

• Focused on quantum optics: "Introductory Quantum Optics", Christopher Gerry and Peter Knight, Cambridge University Press (2004), ISBN-10: 052152735X
  • available at Chalmers library as e-book: to access, login to Chalmers library and then access this website 
• Focused on quantum algorithms and quantum information: "Quantum Computation and Quantum Information", Michael A. Nielsen and Isaac L. Chuang, Cambridge University Press (2000) ISBN 0 521 63503 9
  • available at Chalmers library as e-book: to access, search the book title at Chalmers library and select the search result with Read e-book online.

Course design

The course starts on August 28 2023 at 13:15 in Fasrummet, MC2-A820, and consists of lectures, tutorials, exercises, hand-ins (homework), and a state-of-the-art experiment with report writing. 

Lectures are on Mondays 13:15-16:00 and Thursdays 9:00 - 11:45 (and Friday, Sep 1, 15:15 - 17:00 of the first course week) and are held by Witlef and Simone. All the lectures will be in Fasrummet, MC2-A820.

Exercise sessions are on Fridays 15:15 - 17:00 and are held by Claudia and Simon on-campus. During the exercise sessions, you will discuss the solutions in smaller groups.  Exercise sheets are handed out on Thursdays. Please prepare solutions to the questions on the sheet until the exercise session taking place on Friday the week after (7 days to prepare exercise questions). In total, you will have 5 exercise sessions.

Hand-ins (homework) are handed out on Tuesdays and must be handed in by the next Tuesday (7 days to solve a hand-in). In total, you will have to solve 4 hand-ins.

The laboratory session will take place during week 40 (Oct 2-6) on campus. After the laboratory, you will have to prepare a lab report.

Changes made since the last occasion

This course is based on the previous year's course MCC185 and no changes to the content and examination form have been made.

Learning objectives and syllabus

Learning objectives:

Link to the syllabus: Study plan

Examination form

The course examination will consist of: 4 mandatory hand-ins (graded), 1 lab report (pass/fail), and 1 exam (graded). For re-examination, contact the course examiner.

To pass the course, you need to obtain at least 40% of the points on the exam and participate in the lab and submit a written lab report. The grade will then be based on the exam (50%), hand-ins (35%), and lab report (15%).

The grading scale is as follows:

• pass with a 3: 50% <= x < 60%
• 4: 60% <= x < 85%
• 5:  85% <= x <= 100%

The date of the exam will be Tuesday, October 24, 2023 starting at 8:30. Information on how and in which form the exam takes place you find here. 

Do not forget to register for the exam (both students and PhD students), see explanation here! Without registration, you will not be able to sit the exam. Students register via Ladok, PhD students @ Chalmers register via Ladok, and PhD students who are not admitted to a Chalmers graduate school (doctoral students at the University of Gothenburg for example) cannot use the online exam registration service. Instead, they must send an e-mail to studentcentrum@chalmers.se with the following information: name, personal identity number, and course code, stating that you are a doctoral student. This must be done during the examination sign-up period for the exam.