COSMOS pre-college program - Quantum track

COSMOS

UC Davis

cosmos

OUR MISSION

The mission of COSMOS is to motivate the most creative minds of the new generation of prospective scientists, engineers, and mathematicians who will become leaders for California, the nation, and the world. The program aims to create a community of high school students who participate in and contribute to an intensive academic experience delivered by distinguished educators and scholars.

PROGRAM OVERVIEW

COSMOS at UC Davis is an intensive four-week summer residential PRE-COLLEGE program for high school students who have demonstrated an aptitude for academic and professional careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects. Talented and motivated students completing grades 8-12 have the opportunity to be mentored by renowned faculty, researchers, and scientists in state-of-the-art facilities while exploring advanced STEM topics far beyond the courses usually offered in California high schools. COSMOS fosters its students’ interests, skills, and awareness of educational and career options in STEM fields through challenging curricula that are both hands-on and lab-intensive.  For details on what is being offered this year at COSMOS UC Davis, Click here.

ADVISORY BOARD

COSMOS is guided by a statewide advisory board composed of select leaders with interests and experience in STEM education. The Board advises the COSMOS leadership in general, and the Executive Director in particular, on essential program strategies, including:

  • Fundraising, development, and student accessibility
  • Legislative and public communication
  • Academic and research opportunities for students and alumni

The Board meets semi-annually to review the COSMOS program and discuss new opportunities for advancing the program's mission.

REQUIREMENTS

Students can only apply to ONE of the five University of California’s COSMOS campuses — UC Davis, UC Irvine, UC Los Angeles, UC San Diego, UC Santa Cruz, and UC Merced.  While each campus employs the best practices in STEM education, each program's curriculum builds on the unique teaching and research expertise of its faculty and host campus. Each campus can only accommodate about 160-250 participants, so the selection is competitive. A typical COSMOS student has a GPA of 3.5 or above. Students must have achieved academic excellence. In making admission decisions, we consider the following factors:

  • Grades, especially in math and science courses
  • Math/science teacher recommendations

  • Response to one personal essay question

     

HISTORY

The California Legislature established the California State Summer School for Mathematics and Science (COSMOS) in 1998 (Assembly Bill 2536) to engage highly talented and motivated students in an intensive program of study, experimentation, and activities to further their interests and skills in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The California State Summer School for Mathematics & Science is modeled after the California State Summer School for the Arts. The Request for Proposal to host COSMOS was awarded to the University of California, and the program was launched at Irvine and Santa Cruz in 2000. Due to high demand, UC added additional campuses: UC Davis in 2001, UC San Diego in 2004, UC Los Angeles in 2024, and UC Merced in the near future.

COSMOS helps California meet its need for a talented workforce by encouraging the brightest students in high schools across the state to continue their interest in STEM fields. COSMOS subsequently plays a vital role in supporting the mission of Education Partnerships to address the critical needs of STEM education and the University of California’s objective to help develop a talented STEM workforce that will enhance the state’s economic climate.

To remain competitive in the global economy, California must provide students with exciting opportunities to encourage their enthusiasm for mathematics and science. COSMOS supports California high school students with a nurturing environment that celebrates excellence and innovative thinking in STEM fields. The program also improves the linkage between high school, postsecondary education, and the workforce by connecting students to institutions of higher learning and research facilities. For COSMOS, innovation begins with education.


Cluster 1 -- Quantum Mechanics and Applications to Nanotechnology

Introduction

Is it a particle? Is it a wave? It's both!  Electrons, normally considered particles, can instead behave as waves when they are scattered by an ordered array of atoms in a crystal. Similarly, the photoelectric effect can only be explained if the electromagnetic waves which describe light behaves like particles called photons. Quantum mechanics explains this dichotomy and thereby provides the fundamental description of the perplexing fashion in which matter behaves at very short distances.  Hence, quantum mechanics contains the principles needed to understand fields from solid-state physics to electronics and biology by explaining properties of atoms, chemical bonds, and how the periodic table of elements works. In the first part of the cluster, students will learn some of the basic theoretical principles and how to solve basic quantum mechanical problems computationally, laying the foundation for interpreting the experiments in the second part of the cluster.

Core Courses

Computations of Quantum Phenomena

The basic equations of quantum mechanics involve quite sophisticated mathematics. Fortunately, they can also be solved with some fairly simple computer programs. This portion of the cluster will begin with an introduction to the elements of programming in C which are needed to do quantum mechanics on a computer. (No previous programming experience will be assumed.)  By the end of the month, each student will write programs that illustrate how an electron's location involves a probability of being at a range of positions, rather than a precise value. Using the computer, students will calculate the spreading of the range of positions as time passes and how a quantum particle can `split up' so that there is a chance both for it to be reflected by, and to tunnel through, a barrier.  Time permitting, we will discuss how to achieve `perfect quantum state transfer’ in which a particle moves from one location to another without spreading, a key requirement for quantum computing. 

Quantum Physics Experiments and Applications to Nanotechnology

Each student will learn basic electronics to do quantum physics experiments. Students will use modern scientific instruments to measure the speed of electromagnetic pulses on a cable and also the energies corresponding to the band gaps for light-emitting diodes (LEDs) of different colors. (The inventors of blue LEDs won the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics.) For the final project, small groups of students will work together to construct several scanning tunneling microscopes (STMs). An STM is an instrument that uses quantum mechanical tunneling to make images of individual atoms on the surface of a conducting solid. Students will use a small computer programmed in C to control their experimental apparatus in real-time.

In addition, quantum mechanical ideas will be used to explain phenomena such as properties of crystalline solids, how lasers work, and how to detect single photons. A demonstration will show that double-slit interference of visible light continues to occur even when the flux of photons decreases to the single-photon level in a light-tight tube. Several distinguished faculty will give guest lectures connecting quantum mechanical ideas to their current research on nanotechnology and nanomaterials.