Course development for enhanced learning of quantum engineering

Research Project, 2016

Benefiting the students on several nano-related master’s programs, we propose to improve a lab session in the course “Quantum optics and quantum informatics” (FKA173), 7.5 ECTS, for which the PI has shared course responsibility (50%) as a teacher and examiner. The course is held yearly, in Q1, and attracts students on Chalmers’ Master’s programs in Nanotechnology and Applied Physics; the Erasmus Mundus Master’s in Nanotechnology; other programs at Chalmers and University of Gothenburg; and occasional PhD students.

During this lab, the students use state-of-the-art research equipment for microwave quantum optics and quantum information science with superconducting qubits in the Quantum Device Physics Laboratory at MC2, and acquire some experimental skills relevant for a quantum engineer. A lab-report writing assignment clearly promotes learning retention. Furthermore, this lab session bridges the gap between theory and practice in an otherwise theory-heavy course, and introduces the students to the research frontier in the currently rapidly expanding field of quantum technologies.