Observa-se uma expressiva expansão de mestrados profissionais (MP) na área de Ensino desde a homologação pela Capes, em 2001. Esta dissertação de mestrado analisa trabalhos e produtos educacionais criados no âmbito dos Mestrados Profissionais em Ensino de Física, na área do Ensino de Mecânica Quântica, em uma específica universidade federal. A pesquisa apoia-se em uma análise do discurso, tratando o Trabalho de Conclusão (dissertação+produto educacional) como um enunciado no sentido Bakhtiniano. A partir desta análise, destacamos uma série de inconsistências que permeiam desde o referencial teórico, em muitos casos usado apenas de forma a cumprir exigências sem que seja articulado significativamente à proposta metodológica, até referências que aparecem apenas para contemplar determinados grupos onde o autor está inserido. Por fim destacamos a pouca relevância dos Produtos Educacionais produzidos, não atendendo às demandas escolares e, em muitos casos, trilhando um sentido oposto às pesquisas na área de Ensino de Física. / A significant expansion of professional master’s degree (PM) in the field of Science Education is observed, since its approval in 2001. This dissertation analyses works and educational products created in the scope of professional master’s degree in Physics Teaching, focusing the topic of Quantum Physics Teaching, developed in a federal university. The research relies on a bakhtinian analysis, treating the conclusion work (dissertation + educational product) as an utterance, according to Bakhtin’s theory. From this analysis, it is possible to emphasize a series of inconsistencies that permeate the theoretical framework, in many cases used as a way of fulfilling demands, not significantly articulated to the methodological proposal, also including references that arise only to contemplate certain groups in which the author is inserted. Finally, it is highlighted the low relevance of educational products produced, which do not meet the schools’ demands, and, in many cases, follow an opposite way if compared to researches in the area of Physics Education.

Currently emergencies coming from different reasons and are caused by various factors. In my diploma thesis is focusing on the causes of emergencies coming from quantum and relativistic physics. Among such emergencies are the ligting and the radiation accident. Lightning causes fires in the landscape and its light identification can be explained by the quantum mechanics of the photon, the wave-particle duality of the photon. In the case of a radiation accident occur radioactivity and ionizing radiation. This leakage can be described using the special theory of theory of relativity. On the basis of this informationwas created an educational text that was adapted to the capabilities of students of Civil crisis preparedness.

Neste trabalho apresentamos uma investigação sobre o ensino de física quântica na formação inicial de professores. Essa pesquisa foi desenvolvida junto a uma disciplina da sétima etapa do curso de Licenciatura em Física da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, durante o segundo semestre de 2007, através de uma atividade de ensino centrada na exploração de um software que simula o interferômetro de Mach-Zehnder. Inspirados nos trabalhos de Müller e Wiesner (2002) e Pessoa Jr. (2005), utilizamos o conceito de dualidade onda-partícula como o eixo central das discussões em sala de aula. O objetivo desse estudo consiste em analisar as tensões nos enunciados de estudantes, à luz do referencial sociocultural, e avaliar em que medida os enunciados dos estudantes se articulam à internalização de conceitos de física quântica no uso de instrumentos semióticos. Os resultados mostraram que as ações mediadas pelo uso do interferômetro virtual de Mach-Zehnder, como ferramenta cultural, auxiliaram os processos de compreensão, por parte dos alunos, viabilizando a negociação de significados em sala de aula que são aceitos e compartilhados pela comunidade científica. / In this paper, we present a research of quantum physics teaching in the context of a teachers preparation course. This investigation has been developed in a seventh level discipline of a Bachelor Degree Course in Physics Education, in the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, during the second semester of 2006, through a didatical activity based on the use of a computer program that simulate the Mach-Zehnder interferometer. Ispired by Müller and Wiesner (2002) and Pessoa Jr. (2005), we used the concept of wave-particle duality as the central espect of discussions in the classroom. The aim of the present study was to analyze the student’s utterences, in the light of sociocultural theories, and to investigate how the speech of the studants articulates it self to the internalization of quantum physics concepts, in the use of semiotics instruments. The results showed that the actions mediated by the use of virtual Mach-Zehnder interferometer, as a cultural tool, supported the comprehendig process in studants, feasing the negotiation of meanings that are accepted and shared in scientific community.

Na perspectiva da aprendizagem significativa, o conhecimento prévio, ou subsunçor, do aprendiz é imprescindível para que ocorra a ancoragem cognitiva. As representações sociais, juntamente com outras ideias que compõem a ecologia representacional mental do aprendiz, podem ser relevantes em relação ao que se pretende aprender, pois atuam como subsunçores. Algumas dessas ideias podem ter sofrido a influência de meios de divulgação, que auxiliam na difusão de conceitos científicos – ou quase científicos – e podem influenciar o conhecimento das pessoas, por isso se faz necessário investigar qual o significado atribuído a tais conceitos na elaboração de representações sociais. À luz dos referenciais teóricos da aprendizagem significativa e das representações sociais, é apresentado um estudo, cujos objetivos são: 1) a partir das representações em relação à Física Quântica, identificadas no trabalho de mestrado, propor uma Unidade de Ensino Potencialmente Significativo (UEPS) para tratar deste tema a fim de investigar a possibilidade de modificação nessas representações; e 2) identificar possíveis representações sociais sobre outros conceitos de Física Moderna e Contemporânea que possam atuar como subsunçores no processo de aprendizagem significativa. Para alcançar os objetivos, a pesquisa é dividida em duas frentes de trabalho: a primeira dá continuidade à investigação do mestrado sobre o conceito de Física Quântica, buscando a evolução representacional, através da análise de mapas mentais e conceituais abordados no decorrer de uma proposta de ensino, e a segunda trata da investigação de outros conceitos que possam ser alvo de representações sociais, por meio de questionários de associação de palavras, para alcançar o grande público, como por exemplo, estudantes de Ensino Médio, universitários, moradores de uma mesma região, que compartilhem a mesma cultura, etc. Os resultados indicam a existência de possíveis representações sociais sobre os temas pesquisados e a possibilidade de mudança representacional utilizando a proposta de ensino sobre Mecânica Quântica. / In the perspective of the meaningful learning theory, previous knowledge, or subsumers, are indispensable for cognitive anchoring. Social representations, together with other ideas that compose the learner’s mental representation ecology, might be relevant regarding what is to be learned since they act as subsumers. Some of these ideas might have been influenced by the diffusion media, that help to disseminate scientific concepts – or almost cientifick – and might influence people’s knowledge. That’s why it is necessary to investigate the meaning assigned to these concepts in the construction of social representations. Under the frameworks of meaningful learning and social representations theories a research study was carried out with the following objectives: 1) from the social representations identified in the master’s degree study, regarding Quantum Mechanics, to construct a Potentially Meaningful Teaching Until (PMTU) to deal with this subject and to investigate the possibility of changing such representations; 2) to identify possible social representations about other concepts of Modern an Contemporary Physiscs that might act as subsuming concepts in meaningful learning. To reach these objectives the research was divided into two work fronts: the first one provides some continuation to the study carried out in the master’s degree about the concepts of Quantum Physics, looking for a conceptual evolution, through the use of mental and conceptual maps using during the teaching process, and the second one deals with the research of the other concepts that might be target of social representations, through word association questionnaires, to reach a large audience such as, for exemple, high school students, college students, citizens of a given region that share the same culture, etc. Research findings suggest the existance of possible social representations about the chosen topics and also the possibility of a representational change of them using a didactical proposal to teach Quantum Mechanics.

Observa-se uma expressiva expansão de mestrados profissionais (MP) na área de Ensino desde a homologação pela Capes, em 2001. Esta dissertação de mestrado analisa trabalhos e produtos educacionais criados no âmbito dos Mestrados Profissionais em Ensino de Física, na área do Ensino de Mecânica Quântica, em uma específica universidade federal. A pesquisa apoia-se em uma análise do discurso, tratando o Trabalho de Conclusão (dissertação+produto educacional) como um enunciado no sentido Bakhtiniano. A partir desta análise, destacamos uma série de inconsistências que permeiam desde o referencial teórico, em muitos casos usado apenas de forma a cumprir exigências sem que seja articulado significativamente à proposta metodológica, até referências que aparecem apenas para contemplar determinados grupos onde o autor está inserido. Por fim destacamos a pouca relevância dos Produtos Educacionais produzidos, não atendendo às demandas escolares e, em muitos casos, trilhando um sentido oposto às pesquisas na área de Ensino de Física. / A significant expansion of professional master’s degree (PM) in the field of Science Education is observed, since its approval in 2001. This dissertation analyses works and educational products created in the scope of professional master’s degree in Physics Teaching, focusing the topic of Quantum Physics Teaching, developed in a federal university. The research relies on a bakhtinian analysis, treating the conclusion work (dissertation + educational product) as an utterance, according to Bakhtin’s theory. From this analysis, it is possible to emphasize a series of inconsistencies that permeate the theoretical framework, in many cases used as a way of fulfilling demands, not significantly articulated to the methodological proposal, also including references that arise only to contemplate certain groups in which the author is inserted. Finally, it is highlighted the low relevance of educational products produced, which do not meet the schools’ demands, and, in many cases, follow an opposite way if compared to researches in the area of Physics Education.

Neste trabalho apresentamos uma investigação sobre o ensino de física quântica na formação inicial de professores. Essa pesquisa foi desenvolvida junto a uma disciplina da sétima etapa do curso de Licenciatura em Física da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, durante o segundo semestre de 2007, através de uma atividade de ensino centrada na exploração de um software que simula o interferômetro de Mach-Zehnder. Inspirados nos trabalhos de Müller e Wiesner (2002) e Pessoa Jr. (2005), utilizamos o conceito de dualidade onda-partícula como o eixo central das discussões em sala de aula. O objetivo desse estudo consiste em analisar as tensões nos enunciados de estudantes, à luz do referencial sociocultural, e avaliar em que medida os enunciados dos estudantes se articulam à internalização de conceitos de física quântica no uso de instrumentos semióticos. Os resultados mostraram que as ações mediadas pelo uso do interferômetro virtual de Mach-Zehnder, como ferramenta cultural, auxiliaram os processos de compreensão, por parte dos alunos, viabilizando a negociação de significados em sala de aula que são aceitos e compartilhados pela comunidade científica. / In this paper, we present a research of quantum physics teaching in the context of a teachers preparation course. This investigation has been developed in a seventh level discipline of a Bachelor Degree Course in Physics Education, in the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, during the second semester of 2006, through a didatical activity based on the use of a computer program that simulate the Mach-Zehnder interferometer. Ispired by Müller and Wiesner (2002) and Pessoa Jr. (2005), we used the concept of wave-particle duality as the central espect of discussions in the classroom. The aim of the present study was to analyze the student’s utterences, in the light of sociocultural theories, and to investigate how the speech of the studants articulates it self to the internalization of quantum physics concepts, in the use of semiotics instruments. The results showed that the actions mediated by the use of virtual Mach-Zehnder interferometer, as a cultural tool, supported the comprehendig process in studants, feasing the negotiation of meanings that are accepted and shared in scientific community.

Na perspectiva da aprendizagem significativa, o conhecimento prévio, ou subsunçor, do aprendiz é imprescindível para que ocorra a ancoragem cognitiva. As representações sociais, juntamente com outras ideias que compõem a ecologia representacional mental do aprendiz, podem ser relevantes em relação ao que se pretende aprender, pois atuam como subsunçores. Algumas dessas ideias podem ter sofrido a influência de meios de divulgação, que auxiliam na difusão de conceitos científicos – ou quase científicos – e podem influenciar o conhecimento das pessoas, por isso se faz necessário investigar qual o significado atribuído a tais conceitos na elaboração de representações sociais. À luz dos referenciais teóricos da aprendizagem significativa e das representações sociais, é apresentado um estudo, cujos objetivos são: 1) a partir das representações em relação à Física Quântica, identificadas no trabalho de mestrado, propor uma Unidade de Ensino Potencialmente Significativo (UEPS) para tratar deste tema a fim de investigar a possibilidade de modificação nessas representações; e 2) identificar possíveis representações sociais sobre outros conceitos de Física Moderna e Contemporânea que possam atuar como subsunçores no processo de aprendizagem significativa. Para alcançar os objetivos, a pesquisa é dividida em duas frentes de trabalho: a primeira dá continuidade à investigação do mestrado sobre o conceito de Física Quântica, buscando a evolução representacional, através da análise de mapas mentais e conceituais abordados no decorrer de uma proposta de ensino, e a segunda trata da investigação de outros conceitos que possam ser alvo de representações sociais, por meio de questionários de associação de palavras, para alcançar o grande público, como por exemplo, estudantes de Ensino Médio, universitários, moradores de uma mesma região, que compartilhem a mesma cultura, etc. Os resultados indicam a existência de possíveis representações sociais sobre os temas pesquisados e a possibilidade de mudança representacional utilizando a proposta de ensino sobre Mecânica Quântica. / In the perspective of the meaningful learning theory, previous knowledge, or subsumers, are indispensable for cognitive anchoring. Social representations, together with other ideas that compose the learner’s mental representation ecology, might be relevant regarding what is to be learned since they act as subsumers. Some of these ideas might have been influenced by the diffusion media, that help to disseminate scientific concepts – or almost cientifick – and might influence people’s knowledge. That’s why it is necessary to investigate the meaning assigned to these concepts in the construction of social representations. Under the frameworks of meaningful learning and social representations theories a research study was carried out with the following objectives: 1) from the social representations identified in the master’s degree study, regarding Quantum Mechanics, to construct a Potentially Meaningful Teaching Until (PMTU) to deal with this subject and to investigate the possibility of changing such representations; 2) to identify possible social representations about other concepts of Modern an Contemporary Physiscs that might act as subsuming concepts in meaningful learning. To reach these objectives the research was divided into two work fronts: the first one provides some continuation to the study carried out in the master’s degree about the concepts of Quantum Physics, looking for a conceptual evolution, through the use of mental and conceptual maps using during the teaching process, and the second one deals with the research of the other concepts that might be target of social representations, through word association questionnaires, to reach a large audience such as, for exemple, high school students, college students, citizens of a given region that share the same culture, etc. Research findings suggest the existance of possible social representations about the chosen topics and also the possibility of a representational change of them using a didactical proposal to teach Quantum Mechanics.

In this work, resonant laser spectroscopy has been utilized in two major projects --resonance fluorescence measurements in solid-state quantum-confined nanostructures and laser-induced fluorescence measurements in gases. The first project focuses on studying resonant light-matter interactions in semiconductor quantum dots "artificial atoms" with potential applications in quantum information science. Of primary interest is the understanding of fundamental processes and how they are affected by the solid-state matrix. Unlike atoms, quantum dots are susceptible to a variety of environmental influences such as phonon scattering and spectral diffusion. These interactions alter the desired properties of the scattered light and hinder uses in certain single photon source applications. One application of current interest is the use of quantum dots in “quantum repeaters” for which two-photon interference is key. Motivated by such an application we have explored the limits imposed by environmental effects on two quantum dots in the same sample, the scattered light from which is being interfered. We find that both one-photon and two-photon interference, although substantial, are affected in a variety of ways, in particular by spectral diffusion. These observations are discussed and compared with a theoretical model. We further investigated correlations in pulsed resonance fluorescence, and found significant unexpected spectral and temporal deviations from those studied under continuous wave excitation. Under these conditions, the scattered light exhibits Rabi oscillations and photon anti-bunching, while maintaining a rich spectrum containing many spectral features. These observations are discussed and compared with a theoretical model. In the second project, the focus is on the investigation of the possibility of detecting N2+ ions in air using laser induced fluorescence, with potential applications in detection of fissile materials at a distance. A photon-counting analysis reveals that the fluorescence decay rate rapidly increases with increasing N2 pressure and thus limits the detection at elevated pressures, in particular at atmospheric pressure. We show that time-gated detection can be used to isolate N2+ fluorescence from delayed N2 emission. Based on the spontaneous Raman signal from N2 simultaneously observed with N2+ fluorescence, we could estimate a limit of detection in air of order 108-1010 cm3.

One of today’s challenges to realise computing based on quantum mechanics is to reliably and scalably encode information in quantum systems. Here, we present a photon source to on-demand deliver photonic quantum bits of information based on a strongly coupled atom-cavity system. The source operates intermittently for periods of up to 100 <i>μ</i>s, with a single-photon repetition rate of 1 MHz, and an intra-cavity production efficiency of up to 85%. Our ability to arbitrarily control the photons’ wavepackets and phase profiles, together with long coherence times of 500 ns, allows to store time-bin encoded quantum information within a single photon. To do so, the spatio-temporal envelope of a single photon is sub-divided in d time bins which allows for the delivery of arbitrary qu-d-its. This is done with a fidelity of > 95% for qubits, and 94% for qutrits verified using a newly developed time-resolved quantum-homodyne measurement technique. Additionally, we combine two separate fields of quantum physics by using our deterministic single-photon source to seed linear optics quantum computing (LOQC) circuits. As a step towards quantum networking, it is shown that this photon source can be combined with quantum gates, namely a chip-integrated beam splitter, a controlled-NOT (CNOT) gate as well as a CNOT4 gate. We use this CNOT4 gate to entangle photons deterministically emitted from our source and observe non-classical correlations between events separated by periods exceeding the travel time across the chip by three orders of magnitude. Additionally, we use time-bin encoded qubits to systematically study the de- and re-phasing of quantum states as well as the the effects of time-varying internal phases in photonic quantum circuits.

While the "path integral" formulation of quantum mechanics is both highly intuitive and far reaching, the path integrals themselves often fail to converge in the usual sense. Richard Feynman developed regularization as a solution, such that regularized path integrals could be calculated and analyzed within a strictly physics context. Over the past 50 years, mathematicians and physicists have retroactively introduced schemes for achieving mathematical rigor in the study and application of regularized path integrals. One such scheme was introduced in 2007 by the mathematicians Klaus Kirsten and Paul Loya. In this thesis, we reproduce the Kirsten and Loya approach to zeta function regularization and explore more fully the relationship between operators in physics and classical zeta functions of mathematics. In so doing, we highlight intriguing connections to number theory that arise.