Teaching Goals for Single Photon Studies

In this lab you will perform several short experiments to investigate some uniquely quantum mechanical phenomena related to the photon. In the process you will learn:

1. How to perform coincidence measurements.
   1. Statistics of randomly occurring events.
   2. Accidental coincidences.
   3. How to define the resolving time for a coincidence measurement.
   4. How to perform coincidence measurements using Time to Amplitude Converters.
2. How to work with commonly used quantum optic apparatus.
   1. Single Photon Counters paired to collimated fiber optics.
   2. Detector alignment.
   3. Principles of operation of linear polarizers and half-waveplates.
3. About the production of pairs of entangled photons.
   1. What is Type I Spontaneous Parametric Down Conversion using BBO crystals.
   2. Confirming characteristics of down converted photons.
4. How to setup and verify the correct operation of quantum optic experiments involving single photons.
   1. Perform experiment testing the existence of the photon.
   2. Perform an experiment demonstrating the wave-like nature of the photon to test the concept of wave-particle duality.
   3. Perform an experiment demonstrating dependence of interference effects on the presence of “which way” information.