Quantum & Nano Opt Lab (Advanced)

4.0 credits

NOTE: the schedule for this course will be set by the instructor after polling ALL registered students for availability (One 1 hour per week lectures and ONE 1.5 hours per week lab) This ADVANCED laboratory course is based both on quantum information and new advances in nanotechnology. As much as wireless communication has impacted daily life already, the abstract theory of quantum mechanics promises solutions to a series of problems with similar impact on the twenty-first century. Students will experimentally learn cutting-edge photon counting instrumentation and methods with applications ranging from quantum information to nanotechnology, biotechnology and medicine. Major lab topics include quantum entanglement and Bells inequalities, single-photon interference, single-emitter confocal fluorescence microscopy and spectroscopy, photonic bandgap materials, Hanbury Brown and Twiss interferometer/photon antibunching. Photonic based quantum computing and quantum cryptography will be outlined in the course materials as possible applications of these concepts and tools. Other important quantum and nano-optics experiments and methods [for instance, Hong-Ou-Mandel interferometer and its applications as well as super-resolution optical fluorescent microscopies (nanoscopy)] will be discussed on the lectures. ALL students assignments are individual. For grading students should submit an essay, deliver a 20-mins talk about all labs with submission of their PowerPoint slides, 3 lab reports, maintain their lab journals and pass through MidTerm and Final (Big) Quizzes.