HQBIT: Performing quantum optics practical work in a hybrid environment

Abstract

Active learning based on experiments and practical work helps students understand concepts that challenge our conception of the physical world. However, such experiments can be hard to execute in a classroom context, due to their complexity, difficulty to set up and manipulate, and high cost. The development of digital materials dealt with some of these issues but also brought their own set of drawbacks and do not fulfill what a student is supposed to experience with a real experiment. To combine the advantages of both digital and physical approaches, we developed a hybrid optical bench based on numerical simulation, tangible manipulations, and pedagogical augmentations. In this paper, we present the design of the project and focus on two experimental scenarios