Deployable Quantum Sensors Based on Spins Driven Far-from-Equilibrium - Livestream

In this talk, Professor Ajoy will present their experiments leveraging electron and nuclear spins out of equilibrium to build highly sensitive, deployable quantum sensors. These sensors utilize solid-state systems, such as semiconductors, where nuclear spins can be optically "hyperpolarized" to levels thousands of times greater than thermal equilibrium. Remarkably, these nuclei also exhibit extended coherence lifetimes (T2'>800 seconds), enabling their use in a range of applications. These include serving as highly sensitive sensors for detecting time-varying magnetic fields, enhanced imaging agents, and for creating optically rewritable, nanometer-scale spin textures. They also provide a novel platform for exploring non-equilibrium physics.

By incorporating them in nanoparticle form, we demonstrate the versatility of these sensors, deploying them in diverse environments such as manufactured materials, single-cells, and living plants, and in flowing microdroplet emulsions. In these dynamic settings, they show the potential for highly sensitive chemical assays, outperforming the current state of the art. Finally, they show the ability to extend this approach to a broad class of materials, including defects in semiconductors and molecules containing rare-earth ions or photoexcited triplet electrons. This opens new avenues for sensor construction harnessing chemical synthesis, and expands possibilities for practical application.

Speaker: Ashok Ajoy, UC Berkeley

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