Adaptable Curricular Exercises (ACE) for Quantum Information Science (QIS)
Our goals for this site are to provide adaptable resources to support faculty, including those very new to these topics, who wish to add some student-centered, research-based QIS instruction to your classes.
We have materials for two different audiences, depending on the type of course you teach.
QM Course: Are you teaching quantum mechanics in a physics department to (mostly) majors, and want to add a short unit on quantum information (e.g. quantum computing or cryptography) within your course?
QIS Course: Are you teaching a quantum computing/QIS course to a diverse population of students (e.g. computer science, physics, engineering, math...), and want to support students in the basic quantum mechanics needed?
(These materials are under development)
And: if you teach undergraduate quantum mechanics to physics students and are looking for a suite of student-centered materials to help you with the entire QM course, please visit our Adaptable curricular materials for Quantum Mechanics site.
Tools for introducing QIS in a QM course
Who is this for? An instructor teaching Quantum Mechanics who would like to add some quantum information science topics to their physics course.
(Materials are suitable for faculty new to these topics.)
Topics: We have divided our materials into three main topics.
Qubits, Quantum Gates, and Teleportation
Entanglement and EPR
Quantum CryptographyEach is standalone - materials can be taught without any prerequisite material from the other groups. (Because of this, there are some duplicate materials in and across the groups.)
The material within each group is ordered so that the material early in that group may be used later in that same group. However, we do not intend for the materials to be used wholly as written. Rather, they will comprise a complete set that a faculty member can pick and choose from as it fits their schedule, the material already taught, and the interests of both the faculty member and student.
Types of instructional materials
The “instructional materials” found on this site include: lecture notes for faculty, concept tests, homework questions, online tutorials, and assessments.
Please use and adapt whatever is helpful to you, however it will most benefit your students. Please credit our work if you share your materials beyond your own classes. Please make an effort to keep assessment materials off the open web - alter questions for your students.
Example Classroom Implementations
Curriculum designers Dr. Steven Pollock and Dr. Gina Passante have each taught this material in their classes. Feel free to download our lecture notes - we are happy for you to use whatever material works for your class.
Please email if you try our materials and have any feedback:
steven.pollock (at) colorado.edu or gpassante (at) fullerton.edu
Steven Pollock's CU Boulder Implementation
I teach entanglement and EPR midway through a first semester junior-level quantum mechanics course following a spins-first curriculum (using McIntyre's Quantum Mechanics textbook).
I teach qubits and teleportation late in the second semester (senior-level) quantum course, as a basic introduction to quantum information science.
Each sequence takes one week. These are all taught in "large lecture" (75+ student) settings with 3 50-minute lectures/week.
Please reach out if you have questions or feedback: steven.pollock (at) colorado.edu
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Download the CUB Materials on Qubit Gates and Teleportation:
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Verification Required)
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Download the CUB Materials on Entanglement and EPR: (Verification Required)
Gina Passante's CSUF Implementation
CSUF is a primarily undergraduate, large, Hispanic-serving institution. I teach these materials in several of my quantum mechanics courses at the undergraduate and master's levels.
- Qubits, Quantum Gates, and Teleportation: I choose to teach this in the middle of a first semester of undergraduate QM. My course is spins-first and I do a "quantum computing" week to apply what they have learned before moving to position wave functions.
- Entanglement and EPR: I teach an introduction to entanglement and a conversation of "spooky action at a distance" when I teach the "qubits, quantum gates, and teleportation" material. But the discussion about the EPR paradox and the Bell inequalities is taught at the master's level.
- Quantum Cryptography: This is a one-class supplement that can be taught at any level. The only prerequisite knowledge is superposition states, measurement, and bra-ket notation. The example here was done in my first-semester, junior-level quantum mechanics course.
Feel free to reach out if you have questions (gpassante at fullerton dot edu).
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Download the CSUF materials for Qubits, Quantum Gates, and Teleportation: (Verification Required)
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Download the CSUF materials for Entanglement and EPR: (Verification Required)
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Download the CSUF materials for Quantum Cryptography: (Verification Required)
Introductory Quantum Information Science Materials
Introductory QIS courses are often taught to students from several different academic backgrounds. There will be some students from physics, computer science, engineering, math, and even chemistry backgrounds. This set of materials is intended to be a deep conceptual practice on some of the fundamental ideas in quantum information science. Some students may find these materials too easy, while others may find them too hard. That is exactly the reason for their existence! The goal is to bring all students to the same level of understanding that will set the foundation for future QIS learning.
The activities are designed to take between 30-60 minutes and can be used either in class (with paper versions) or assigned for homework (interactive online versions). If you are interested in using the online versions email us at hello[at]acephysics[dot]net to set up a page for your course where you will have access to student completion data.
Preliminary online tutorials can be found at https://acephysics.net/ (and linked directly below). These online tutorials are suitable for homework or in-class group work.
Note: By design, these materials do not cover complex (or even intermediate) QIS topics. We have chosen to focus on those materials most important at the beginning of a QIS course. These topics happen to be "physics heavy" topics, and ones for which our group's educational and research expertise is particularly well-matched.
Introduction to Quantum Gates
This activity is a first step in learning about quantum computing, introducing qubit states, Dirac and matrix notation, measurement probabilities, and single-qubit X, Z, H, and I gates.
There is no prerequisite knowledge required for this activity, but previous classroom introduction to basic ideas and notation of quantum states (including Dirac and matrix notation) is useful.
There is not currently a demo page for this tutorial (coming soon!), but you can view the Tutorial using the student link by entering an email address. This will store your answers so that you can return to the activity later.
If you are assigning this activity in your course, email us at hello[at]acephyics[dot]net to get a course page where you can access student completion information.
Alternatively, you may use a paper version of the activity in your class. (download below)
Sample Question from Online Activity- Introduction to Quantum Gates (paper version)
- Instructor's Guide to paper version
Quantum Circuit Diagrams
Quantum Circuit Diagrams - practice with single-qubit gates represented as circuit diagrams.
Prerequisite knowledge: Basic gates and quantum states (i.e. the previous tutorial "Introduction to Quantum Gates")
There is not currently a demo page for this tutorial (coming soon!), but you can view the Tutorial using the student link by entering an email address. This will store your answers so that you can return to the activity later.
If you are assigning this activity in your course, email us at hello[at]acephyics[dot]net to get a course page where you can access student completion information.
Alternatively, you may use a paper version of the activity in your class. (download below)
- Introduction to Quantum Circuits
