Course syllabus

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Course-PM

MCC185 From quantum optics to quantum technologies lp1 HT24 (7.5 hp).

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

Contact details

Witlef Wieczorek

Simone Gasparinetti

Hannes Pfeifer

Simon Sundelin

Alexander Jung

Kunal Helambe

Student representatives

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

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 or superconducting qubits) 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

We will post lecture notes, exercise sheets and hand-outs on the canvas page of the course. Further, 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 September 2nd 2024 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 6th, 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 (except on Friday 20th Sept, instead Monday Sept 23rd 10:00-11:45) and are held by Simon and Alexander. 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 (graded 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 41 (Oct 7-11) 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:

After the course the student should be able to:
- Understand the difference between classical and non-classical radiation
- Explain the properties of the Jaynes-Cummings model
- Use the Bloch equations to describe the dissipative dynamics of a quantum mechanical two-level system
- Compute the output state of simple quantum circuits composed of elementary single-qubit operations, entangling gates and measurements
- Have a basic knowledge of the leading architectures to build a quantum computer and their comparative advantages and disadvantages
- Understand the difference between a quantum computer and a quantum simulator, and discuss use cases for both
- Understand how quantum technology may threaten today's encryption keys and how secure communication can be established by quantum links
- Explain the standard quantum limit and how to break it  
- Explain and experimentally perform manipulations and tomographic measurements of quantum states of a microwave resonator, assisted by a superconducting qubit

Link to the syllabus: Study plan

Examination form

The course examination will consist of: four mandatory hand-ins (graded), one lab report (graded), and an 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 course grade will be based on the exam (50%), hand-ins (35%), and the 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 exam will take place on 29th October 8:30 - 12:30. Information on how and in which form the exam takes place you find here. 

Exam registration

Do not forget to register for the exam (both students and PhD students), see explanation here!

New registration procedure: Starting with the academic year 24/25, students will be automatically signed up for the first ordinary exam session of a course, see here.

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 tentamen@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.

Course summary:

Date Details Due