Advances in measurement always lead to dramatic advances in science and in technology. Our society is now heavily dependent on the sensors that permeate environmental monitoring, security, healthcare and commerce. Now, our rapidly growing understanding of how to control quantum systems vastly expands both the potential performance and application for measurement and sensing using quantum-enhanced techniques. But these techniques will only efficiently find disruptive use once they are engineered for robustness, deliver desired operational parameters and are shown to work in a platform that can be mass-produced.
This project adopts an engineering approach to the disciplines of photonic quantum enhanced sensing and squeezed light quantum optics. We will develop new sensing protocols and implement them in integrated photonics that are tailored to enable miniature, deployable and ultimately low cost sensors that exceed the state of the art through (i) exploitation of the quantum mechanics of light and by (ii) developing the requisite high performance of components in an integrated photonics platform. The methodology is to combine quantum optics of Kerr-nonlinear materials that generate squeezed light and quantum state detection with photonic device engineering. We will benchmark device performance using quantum metrology techniques. By the end of this project, we will have developed all-integrated squeezed light generation and detection technology, that provides enhanced sensors for absorption and phase measurements beyond the shot noise limit --- the hard limit that bounds performance of state of the art “classical” sensors. Applications include next generation quantum metrology experiments, measurement of photo- sensitive samples, precise characterization of photonic components and trace gas detection.
