QuSeC-TAQS: Distributed Entanglement Quantum Sensing of Atmospheric and Aerosol Chemistries

This project addresses a pressing challenge for society - how to track and to respond to a rapidly changing climate. The goal is to develop and demonstrate a quantum sensing platform that features an in situ distributed sensor network to measure and understand atmospheric chemistries and climate variables. At its most fundamental level, an entangled quantum network is capable of sensing multiple geographically and locally distinct systems with higher precision than the summation of each system probed individually.

Entangled networks can thus elucidate non-classical correlations between probes over distributed nodes. Extending the physical limits of sensing to measure and analyze complex datasets from the environment at the thermodynamic and quantum noise limits can aid with societal well-being and public health. The convergent expertise of the team assembled brings together quantum science & engineering, electrical & computer engineering, atmospheric & geosciences, chemistry & biochemistry, and applied mathematics.

This effort is aligned with the launch of the US CHIPS and Science Act, and for US competitiveness in quantum technologies. Atmospheric and geoscientists will leverage new quantum measurement technologies from this project to address key measurement challenges: varied measured environments, better time resolution in spectroscopy, higher sensitivity through distributed entanglement, and/or the ability to measure transient species.

A major societal impact will be in public health decision-making, based on newly enabled measurements and real-time analyses of atmospheric chemistries with unprecedented spatial-temporal resolution, providing actionable information on locality, e.g., to prevent respiratory illness, enabled in real-time by a comprehensive entangled network of quantum sensors. With UCLA on track to become an Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) by 2025, this effort develops a highly qualified, diverse workforce, building on a track-record of non-traditional education programs, including the Cal-Bridge and Physics Bridge, creating opportunities for historically underrepresented groups at Cal State campuses.

UCLA Women in Engineering WE@UCLA Technical Academies will introduce quantum sensing with programming around this program’s technologies resulting, in collaboration with industry, startups, and non-academic stakeholders in atmospheric chemistry and geosciences.

Quantum sensing is a powerful paradigm that encompasses the use of non-classical states of light and matter to probe species of interest. Compared to classical probes, non-classical states of light in metrology, including frequency-multiplexed high-dimensional entangled photons and squeezed light across distributed networks, exhibit uncharted sensing capabilities.

This project comprises two interdisciplinary and synergistic Thrusts: 1. quantum-enabled networked sensor systems, involving sensor data fusion and multimodal learning on quantum sensors, and distributed entanglement-assisted high-dimensional precision phase metrology in remote sensing at and beyond the standard quantum limit (SQL). This effort is complemented with thrust 2. on quantum sensor arrays for molecular fingerprinting, involving hyperspectral dual-comb spectroscopy and stabilization beyond the standard quantum limit, and molecular dual-comb spectroscopy at the Schawlow-Townes limits and a quantum-limited THz spectrometer.

Relevant to the broader quantum sensing community, the program will demonstrate distributed entanglement for quantum metrology towards below-SQL biochemical sensitivities, including biphoton and multi-partite time-frequency entanglement sources, in the presence of noise and channel losses in each sensing pathway. The team focus will be on chemical species that are challenging to measure, including reduced and oxidized forms of N, S, and C, as well as NH3, NOx, and free radical chemistries.

Further, the team leverages and advances the mathematics of real-time analyses and quantum sensor data fusion. This project was co-funded by the Quantum Sensors Challenge for Transformative Advances in Quantum Systems (QuSeC-TAQS) program, and the NSF Office of International Science and Engineering.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.