NSF Convergence Accelerator Track L: Portable Quantum-enhanced Sensing and Species Identification of Bioaerosols

Bioaerosols encompass diverse classes of airborne particles that contain materials of biological origin including bacteria, viruses, pollen, archaea, fungi, and their fragments and byproducts. Bioaerosols directly impact short-term and long-term human, animal, plant, and climate health, viability, and associated economies of scale. Despite their importance, estimates of global mass emissions of bioaerosols have uncertainties of 1-2 orders of magnitude and identifying specific species and their origins in bioaerosols remains difficult.

This project involves the development of a convergent, real-world chemical sensing approach to advance understanding of the origins and temporal evolution of bioaerosols, and guide their mitigation, when needed. This project will advance the technology readiness level of sensor technologies targeting bioaerosols and deliver prototypes of a suite of sensors essential for bioaerosol identification.

By developing multimodal, field-deployable bioaerosol sensors, this research holds the potential to reduce the spread of infectious diseases, allergens, and antibiotic-resistant genes and organisms. The team will leverage joint projects with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), federally funded research and development centers, including the National Aeronautic Space Agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (Boulder), and include strategic translation partners in the US private sector in space, aerospace, and remote sensing.

With UCLA on target to become a Hispanic Serving Institution 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, and establishing professional development programming in collaboration with industry, startups, and non-academic stakeholders in atmospheric chemistry, remote sensing, and geosciences.

This multidisciplinary Accelerator team will develop, test, optimize, and combine transistor-based portable biosensors and quantum-enhanced sensors to achieve highly sensitive, high-speed, remote, multiplexed, multimodal, and in situ measurements of bioaerosols, including identifying microorganism species. The team brings together the sensor developers with the sensor end users via engineered prototypes to address a pressing challenge in real-world chemical sensing: bioaerosols.

In Phase I, this program will demonstrate a prototype of a suite of sensors: (1) a portable electronic direct-detection sensor capable of quantifying the presence of multiple microorganisms in bioaerosols based on their genetic signatures with a 1000-copy-number or lower limit of detection, (2) an integrated terahertz sensor based on quantum-logic spectroscopy of molecular ions that can perform in-situ detection and identification of bioaerosols in the field, and (3) a dual-comb spectrometer using on-chip frequency combs for bioaerosol identification in the field. These sensors will be supported by the development of a frequency-locked optical whispering evanescent resonator (FLOWER) platform and hyperspectral unmixing and sensor data fusion techniques.

In Phase II, this program will partner with industry and non-profit stakeholders to commercialize and deploy these sensors in the field.

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.