"Version: 20240801"--Title page verso.

Includes bibliographical references.

1. Introduction -- 2. Classical nature of light -- 2.1. Electromagnetic waves -- 2.2. Polarization -- 2.3. Preparatory experimental explorations -- 2.4. C1 : Investigating polarization of light through Jones calculus -- 2.5. C2 : Fourier analysis and peanut plots -- 2.6. C3 : Interference and erasure of which-way information

3. Quantum nature of light -- 3.1. Quantum mechanical states -- 3.2. Qubits -- 3.3. Transforming quantum states -- 3.4. Measuring quantum states -- 3.5. Composite systems and entangled states -- 3.6. Mixed states and the density matrix -- 3.7. Photon statistics

4. Experiments related to generating single photons -- 4.1. General components of the lab -- 4.2. Q1 : Spontaneous parametric downconversion -- 4.3. Q2 : Testing the particle-like behavior of light -- v5. The polarization of photons -- 5.1. Q3 : Estimating the polarization state of single photons -- 5.2. Q4 : 'Visualizing' the polarization state of single photons

6. Entanglement and nonlocality -- 6.1. Entanglement and nonlocality : a survey -- 6.2. The proverbial Alice and Bob experiment -- 6.3. Generating polarization-entangled photons -- 6.4. NL1 : Freedman's test of locality -- 6.5. NL2 : CHSH test of locality -- 6.6. NL3 : Hardy's test of locality -- 6.7. Conclusion -- 7. Quantum interference and quantum erasure -- 7.1. Q5 : Single-photon interference and quantum erasure -- 7.2. Q+NL : Nonlocal quantum erasure

8. Quantum state tomography -- 8.1. Qubits, Stokes parameters, and tomography -- 8.2. Single-qubit tomography -- 8.3. Two-qubit tomography -- 8.4. Nonideal measurements and compensation of errors -- 8.5. Maximum-likelihood estimation -- 8.6. The experiment

9. Conclusion -- Appendix A. FPGA--introduction and programming -- Appendix B. Inventory for single-photon experiments.

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This book is valuable for laboratory developers, researchers and teachers who would like to recreate a similar suite of experiments for students and early career researchers. These experiments enliven theoretical descriptions of key ideas from quantum information and quantum computing, providing accessible means to generate, manipulate and measure quantum states, and understand their implications for the foundations of quantum mechanics. This new edition features additional experiments related to quantum entanglement and non-local quantum erasure and has restructured previous descriptions. Data processing in an open-source language is described. The appendix on programming FGPAs is considerably enhanced.

Physics students, lecturers and lab class organisers.

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Muhammad Sabieh Anwar is Professor of Physics at the Syed Babar Ali School of Science and Engineering, LUMS. He is also General Secretary of the Khwarizmi Science Society (http://www.khwraizmi.org) aimed at awakening a spirit of meaningful science education in the Pakistani society, has founded the PhysLab, a regional platform for research infused physics education and finally, he loves to teach. Faizan-e-Ilahi is a graduate student of Physics at LUMS. During his undergraduate studies he helped to build the Single Photon Quantum Mechanics Laboratory at LUMS. He is currently working in magneto-optics. His areas of interest are quantum information and open quantum systems. He is inspired by the works and lectures of Leonard Susskind. Other than that, he is interested in Urdu and Persian literature and likes to study political philosophies and dystopian literature. Syed Bilal Hyder earned his BS in Physics from LUMS Syed Babar Ali School of Science and Engineering as an NOP scholar. After graduating, he joined PhysLab (https://www.physlab.org) as a full-time researcher and undertook multiple projects to upgrade the single-photon laboratory. His research interests lie in quantum communication and quantum computing architecture. Muhammad Hamza Waseem is pursuing a DPhil in Physics at the University of Oxford. His current research spans quantum foundations and quantum science education. Hamza regularly contributes to science outreach events in Pakistan and the UK. He also works as a Research Scientist at Quantinuum, and teaches mathematics and physics at various institutions within the University of Oxford.

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