Abstract

Quantum Mechanics in the headlines today captures the imagination of the public, deep wallets of investors and industries, and prioritizes academic and national research programs throughout the world. It all begins with superposition and entanglement. Canonical educational approaches, however, may not build the intuitive or the computational ability required of practitioners where quantum is center-stage. An APS News front-page article by Meredith Fore details and explores the current situation: ”The Newest Frontier: Building a Skilled workforce. Education in Quantum Mechanics has lagged for years. Experts are trying to change this.”¹ Here we highlight innovations and experiences coupling our curriculum, advanced labs, and undergraduate research to best address these educational questions and skills-based needs. Our approaches are based on ready-available two-state, two-particle entangled light source table-top experiments and finite-dimensioned (familiar) vector spaces as opposed to infinitely dimensioned function-space solutions to differential equations with little intuitive connection and/or easy access to experimental experience. Our Physics and Photonics and Optical Engineering Quantum I course has migrated from a traditional text to one espousing these new directions (M. Beck. Quantum Mechanics, Theory and Experiment)² and our experiments are centered around a commercially available educational entanglement source (Quantum Design, quTool’s quED)³ with avalanche single-photon detectors, coincidence electronics, with standard and add-on experiments that are in step with the text but, as a kit, come more student-ready. This approach may better promote quantum technologies, prepare scientists, technicians, and engineers, and offer deeper insight to what quantum is really telling us.

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