This repository contains the base software tools and applications for interfacing
with hardware used in the Quantum Defect Laboratory
at the University of Washington.
This repository was initially forked from qt3-utils
(developed for the Quantum Technologies Teaching and Test-Bed (QT3) lab,
also at the University of Washington).
Currently, qdl-utils supports the following hardware for experiments with
solid-state optical emitters and spin-qubits:
- TTL pulsers
- Quantum Composer Sapphire
- Spin Core PulseBlaster
- Excelitas SPCM for photon detection
- NI-DAQ card (PCIx 6363) for data acquisition and control
- Jena System's piezo actuator stage control amplifier
- Mad City Labs piezo actuator stage control
- Newport Micrometers via serial connection
Additionally, several fully interfaced, Python applications are provided for standard and commonly used experiments:
qt3scope: Real-time oscilloscope readout from the SPCM via the digital input terminal on the NI-DAQ board.qt3scan: Reconfigurable 1-d and 2-d confocal scan imaging.qt3pb: A simple GUI for controlling the pulse blaster.qdlple: Reconfigurable resonant excitation (photoluminescence excitation) spectroscopy.qdlmove: Customizable graphical interface for position control, reconfigurable for mutltiple positioners.
Applications are generally structured to be easily configured for different setups (using supported hardware) via the use of YAML files. Modifications to include additional hardware should also be relatively straightforward. Finally, in the case where a custom one-off, experiment is required, many of the controllers and hardware interfaces can be utilized directly without the development of a GUI or application.
Currently this repository is still under development to add generic, widely used functionality. Once these features have been added, this repository will no longer be in active development. Instead, users are expected to fork from this repository and actively maintain their forks with their own applications and hardware. In the event that specific features, changes, or bug fixes are of generic interest to multiple users, this repository may be merged/updated via a Pull Request.
The utilities in this package depend on publicly available Python packages found on PyPI and drivers built by National Instruments for DAQmx and SpinCore for the PulseBlaster. These libraries must be installed separately.
Because this package is intended to be forked and customized for use in a
variety of experimental setups, we do not intend to release this package on PyPI.
Instead, users must clone qdl-utils (or their specific fork) onto their
own machine and install it locally.
Instructions for how to do this are provided below.
Note that Pull Requests (and commits to the main branch) on qdl-utils
will generally be rejected.
Thus, it is strongly discouraged to install qdl-utils directly if you
intend on tracking your changes with GitHub.
Instructions for creating a fork are provided below.
Follow these instructions to create a fork
via the GitHub web browser.
For QDL members, create the fork to be owned by the UW-Quantum-Defect-Lab GitHub organization
and name the fork appropriately as to be distinguishable for your project, e.g. qdl-utils-diamond
or qdl-utils-magpi.
For the purposes of this tutorial we will assume that the fork is named my-qdl-utils-fork.
Once the fork has been created on GitHub, move on to the next step. Do not clone your fork yet; we will do this in the next steps.
If you wish to completely decouple from qdl-utils then you can follow these
instructions to detach your fork.
Note that this will prevent you from being able to Pull Request qdl-utils or
straightforwardly merge updates onto your repository.
It is highly recommended that you utilize some form of virtual environment to
install your fork my-qdl-utils-fork (in this example).
It is assumed that you will use Anaconda
or its lightweight version Miniconda.
If you are unfamiliar with conda please review this tutorial.
For Windows users new to Anaconda, it is recommended to install Anaconda for only your user
and then utilize the provided Anaconda PowerShell Prompt terminal for the remainder
of this process.
Create a new virtual environment with Python 3.9. In this example we will name the
virtual environment qdlutils, but you can change it to something else if desired.
In a terminal configured to for conda, run
> conda create --name qdlutils python=3.9
to create the virtual environment and then activate it via
> conda activate qdlutils
Navigate (in the terminal) to the directory in which you would like to install
the full qdl-utils repository.
This includes not only the qdlutils package source code, but also examples,
and any other files stored in the repository.
Note that you will often need to edit the source code so pick a directory which
you can easily access.
Once your present working directory is the desired location, clone your fork via
> git clone <URL of my-qdl-utils-fork>
You can get the URL for your fork from its GitHub page by clicking on the green "Code" button as shown in the following picture, then copying the URL:
For example, if we wanted to install the qdl-utils repo itself we could run
git clone https://github.com/UW-Quantum-Defect-Lab/qdl-utils.git.
Your URL will probably be something like git clone https://github.com/UW-Quantum-Defect-Lab/my-qdl-utils-fork.git.
Note that, for reasons explained above, cloning qdl-utils directly is not
recommended.
Finally, move into the the newly created clone of your repository.
Assuming that the name of your fork is my-qdl-utils-fork we first move into
the repository by
> cd my-qdl-utils-fork
and then install it locally in editor mode via
> pip install -e .
Do not forget the .!
This refers pip to the pyproject.toml file in the home directory
of the repository that does the installation.
The -e option ensures that any edits you make to the local repository
are reflected in subsequent imports in Python scripts (without this you
would have to pip install after each edit).
Finally confirm that the installation worked correctly by launching the Python interpreter and then importing the package:
> Python
Python 3.9 ...
>>> import qdlutils
>>>
Upgrading Tcl/Tk via Anaconda overcomes some GUI bugs on Mac OS Sonoma
conda install 'tk>=8.6.13'