AIPLAB — Adaptive & Integrated Photonics Lab

Education - PHOT 301 Quantum Photonics

PHOT 301 Quantum Photonics

Course given during the fall semester of 2024-2025 over 14 weeks (2 hours theory + 2 hours practice), please see also the syllabus. The course materials will be added during the semester.

Study materials and guidance

  • Course syllabus (pdf)
  • David Miller's webpage containing links to his course materials. We are using his textbook on Quantum Mechanics (together with Griffith's) within our course.
  • QuVis: Web site with quantum mechanics visualizations and simulations for educational purposes.
  • QuTiP: A computational library for quantum mechanics/optics simulations in Python.
  • Applet(s) by Paul Falstad with simulations for 1D quantum mechanical systems.

Lecture materials

Lecture Topics Slides Book
1 Introduction to the course (pdf) Griffith's Ch. 1
1 Schrödinger's equation (pdf) (html) Griffith's Ch. 1
2 Time-independent Schrödinger equation (pdf) (html) Griffith's Ch. 2
3 Infinite well, Harmonic oscillator (pdf) (html) Griffith's Ch. 2
5 Bound states, free particles and scattering: part I (pdf) (html) Griffith's Ch. 2
8, 10 Dirac formalism: part I (pdf) (html) Griffith's Ch. 3
11 Dirac formalism: part II (pdf) (html) Griffith's Ch. 3
12 Dirac formalism: part III (pdf) (html) Griffith's Ch. 3
12B Approximation methods: Transfer Matrix Method (pdf) (html) Miller's Ch. 11
13, 15 Approximation methods: Finite basis, FDM, perturbation (pdf) (html) Miller's Ch. 6
17 Approximation methods: Time-dependent perturbation (pdf) (html) Miller's Ch. 7
19 Angular momentum and the Hydrogen atom (html) Miller's Ch. 9-10
21 Electron spin [to be uploaded] Miller's Ch. 12
23, 24 Pauli equation (html) Miller's Ch. 12
25 Molecules & Tight-binding (pdf) (html) Miller's Ch. 6
26 Periodic systems, Bloch functions, and the K.P theorem [to be uploaded] Miller's Ch. 6
27 Identical particles [to be uploaded] Miller's Ch. 13
27 Density matrix [to be uploaded] Miller's Ch. 14

Additional course materials

Content File(s)
Exercises on matrices (pdf)
First project (topics description) (pdf)
Second project (topics description) (pdf)
Third project (topics description) (pdf)

Exam questions & solutions

These are questions and solutions of example exams and/or previous midterm and final exams (and retake opportunities)
Year Exam name Questions Solutions
2024-2025 Example midterm exam (pdf) (pdf)
2024-2025 Midterm exam (pdf) (pdf)
2024-2025 Midterm exam (retake) (pdf) [to be uploaded]
2024-2025 Example final exam (pdf) (pdf)

Further background materials

These are some further materials which could be of interest for those who want to look into more advanced topics or applications/computations/simulations.