The comprehensive monitoring of the food chain, i.e. from growth to consumer, without gaps is of outstanding importance to consumer health and the food industry alike. Yet, due to the lack of suitable sensing technologies at adequate costs, only selective, critical spots can currently be monitored. While the particular food to be monitored may take any shape or form during processing, gases are always present and their composition is uniquely suited to learn about the state of the system. In this contribution, a universal quantum sensor concept to identify and quantify the components of complex gas matrices is presented. The sensing approach is based on detecting Raman scattered photons from inside a gas sample filled optical cavity. Because of the typically small Raman scattering cross-sections on the order of 10-30 cm2 a Fabry-Perot cavity with a Finesse of about 2,000 is used to enhance the available laser power of an extended cavity diode laser running at 780 nm. The scattered light is funneled onto a spectrometer after Rayleigh scattered photons have been suppressed using a notch filter. To allow in-situ determination of arbitrary gas matrices, the sensor concept relies on the diffusion of ambient air into the cavity. The setup is currently able to simultaneously detect gases with Raman spectra up to 3000 cm-1, which includes important indicators for food packaging, including nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon dioxide.
The comprehensive monitoring of the food chain, i.e. from growth to consumer, without gaps is of outstanding importance to consumer health and the food industry alike. Yet, due to the lack of suitable sensing technologies at adequate costs, only selective, critical spots can currently be monitored. While the particular food to be monitored may take any shape or form during processing, gases are always present and their composition is uniquely suited to learn about the state of the system. In this contribution, a universal quantum sensor concept to identify and quantify the components of complex gas matrices is presented. The sensing approach is based on detecting Raman scattered photons from inside a gas sample filled optical cavity. Because of the typically small Raman scattering cross-sections on the order of 10-30 cm2 a Fabry-Perot cavity with a Finesse of about 2,000 is used to enhance the available laser power of an extended cavity diode laser running at 780 nm. The scattered light is funneled onto a spectrometer after Rayleigh scattered photons have been suppressed using a notch filter. To allow in-situ determination of arbitrary gas matrices, the sensor concept relies on the diffusion of ambient air into the cavity. The setup is currently able to simultaneously detect gases with Raman spectra up to 3000 cm-1, which includes important indicators for food packaging, including nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon dioxide.
Mid-infrared (mid-IR) spectra revealing the distinct “fingerprint” of molecules are of critical importance for both science and technology in chemistry, physics, materials science, and biology. Mid-IR sensing and spectroscopy provide unique and powerful tools for crucial applications in greenhouse gas monitoring, hazardous emission detection, and medical breath diagnosis. However, the low-photon energy characteristic of the mid-IR spectrum poses significant challenges for both mid-IR light sources and detectors, hindering their compact and cost-efficient applications in various areas. Here, we experimentally demonstrate mid-IR gas spectroscopy without mid-IR photons solely using convenient near-IR optical components. This is realized by generating photon pairs (i.e., a mid-IR photon and a near-IR one) through a spontaneous parametric downconversion in a microscale optical cavity. The generation rate of near-IR photons strongly relies on the absorption of the mid-IR photon due to their quantum correlation. Through interacting with evanescent fields around the microcavity, the absorptive mid-IR resonances of the surrounding gas greatly affect the detected near-IR photons without harassing any mid-IR photon. This scheme presents a cost-effective and compact solution for on-chip quantum gas spectroscopy without requiring expensive mid-IR lasers and detectors or lasers, thereby paving new avenues for applications in environmental monitoring/safety, healthcare, and agriculture.
Coherent Raman spectroscopy is widely applied to mitigate the effects of the smallness of scattering cross-sections common in standard Raman spectroscopy. In this work, we use phased-matched coherent “Stokes” Raman scattering in a macroscopic high-finesse optical enhancement cavity pumped using a narrow-band continuous-wave laser to intensify Raman signals derived from a trace of gaseous Raman-active molecules. To demonstrate the superiority of this method, we directly measure the ratio of signals arising from coherent Raman scattering to those arising from spontaneous Raman scattering in a gaseous medium under the same conditions. The measured enhancement ratio exceeds 10 9 and agrees well with the theoretically predicted value, strongly implying that the proposed method is highly promising for the ultrasensitive detection of traces of homonuclear diatomic molecules that are not accessible via absorption spectroscopy.
The energy sector has become increasingly dependent upon highly sensitive sensing devices for a wide range of applications. Variables such as temperature, pH, electromagnetic fields, ions, and pressure must be measured with high precision, often in harsh conditions (e.g. highly corrosive environments due to high temperature, pressure and humidity). These sensors are deployed in infrastructure such as transformers, pipelines, mines, nuclear power plants, and other areas to ensure safe operating conditions and uninterrupted, optimized service. Moreover, new opportunities for sensors have emerged due to the expansion of smart grids/meters, driverless vehicles, and the discovery of new oil, gas, and critical mineral deposits. The continued maturation of quantum sensing technologies offers exciting opportunities for quantum-enhanced measurements within the energy sector that may provide significant improvements in sensitivity beyond the classical limit. Here, an overview of established and emerging quantum materials for sensing applications will be provided, from trapped ions to color centers in diamond and silicon carbide. Associated quantum sensing methods for these materials will be discussed, with an emphasis on platforms that are nearing commercial viability. Specific application opportunities within the energy sector for quantum sensors will then be analyzed, including oil/gas discovery, greenhouse gas emission monitoring, pH and ion sensing, current measurement in electric vehicle batteries, and quantum-enhanced spectroscopy. Remaining barriers, such as quantum sensor platform miniaturization and ruggedization, will also be analyzed. A specific project at the National Energy Technology Laboratory involving the functionalization of qubits using metal-organic frameworks for enhanced quantum sensing will also be highlighted. Here, nitrogen vacancy centers (NV) in nanodiamonds, a commercially available qubit with long coherence times and utilizable quantum properties at room temperature, are encapsulated in a controlled way using the metal-organic framework ZIF-8. The ZIF-8 provides a well-defined, porous scaffold that can be controlled to promote the selective uptake of specific target analytes, such as gas molecules or ions. The quantum sensing performance of this composite material is either preserved or enhanced following ZIF-8 encapsulation; the optically detected magnetic resonance response of the NV nanodiamonds with and without the ZIF-8 coating are identical, while the ZIF-8 coating increases the longitudinal spin relaxation lifetime (T1) of the NV centers, an important parameter for spin relaxometry-based quantum sensing experiments. Taken together, these results demonstrate the importance of qubit functionalization as a crucial step for rationally designing high performance quantum sensors.
We have realized a fiber-based Fabry–Perot cavity with CO 2 laser-machined mirrors. It combines very small size, high finesse , small waist and mode volume, and good mode matching between the fiber and cavity modes. This combination of features is a major advance for cavity quantum electrodynamics (CQED), as shown in recent CQED experiments with Bose–Einstein condensates enabled by this cavity (Colombe Y et al 2007 Nature 450 272). It will also be suitable for a wide range of other applications, including coupling to solid-state emitters, gas detection at the single-particle level, fiber-coupled single-photon sources and high-resolution optical filters with large stopband.
Semiconductor nanostructures such as quantum dots (QDs) have offered unique opportunities to investigate quantum optical effects in solid-state systems. These include quantum interference, Rabi oscillations, as well as photon antibunching, and were previously observable only in isolated atoms or ions. In addition, QDs can be integrated into optical microcavities, making them attractive for applications in quantum information processing and high efficiency quantum light sources. Despite much progress towards these goals, one area that was little explored is coherent control of such solid-state quantum emitters in cavities. The main technical hurdle lies in overcoming the laser background scattering. By using a sample structure in which QDs are embedded in a planar Fabry-Perot cavity and by using an orthogonal excitation geometry, we have achieved a nearly complete elimination of laser background scattering. This in turn allows us to show resonantly controlled light emission of quantum dots in the cavity including (a) Rabi flopping using pulse control, (b) direct observation of Mollow triplets in the frequency domain, and (c) simultaneously measured first-order and second order photon-photon correlations.