NSF CAREER Award: Designing next-generation quantum sensors

The next generation of quantum sensors has huge potential in many applications, allowing for greater accuracy in medical imaging and GPS navigation, for example. The problem is, these sensors don’t exist yet. Erik Hoy, Ph.D., an assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry in the College of Science & Mathematics, wants to change that. 

Hoy has been awarded a Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) Award from the National Science Foundation to develop methodologies that would allow for the creation of nanoscale quantum sensors. He will receive $580,000 in funding over the next five years to support the work.

The NSF CAREER program offers the federal agency’s most prestigious awards in support of early-career faculty serving as academic role models in research and education. Faculty honored with the award are recognized for their potential as outstanding leaders in their field of research. 

Nanoscale quantum sensors offer a high level of sensitivity, but they are notoriously difficult to create because the sensors themselves must be extremely small, the size of a single molecule. Existing methods for determining the accuracy and reliability of these devices are insufficient. Hoy will design a comprehensive methodology that will help experimentalists to create highly sensitive and long-lasting sensors. 

“The goal at the end of this project will be to answer the question: Can we build one of these devices, and will it really be next generation?” Hoy said. “I'll be able to say this device should be built, there is a molecular quantum sensor out there that will be better than any existing design, and somebody should build it.”

The project is an evolution of Hoy’s work developing novel methodologies for nanoelectronics. Hoy previously built software to help determine if nanoelectronics-based computer chips functioned as engineers hoped. For this project, the methodology required a substantial redesign to handle the challenge of modeling quantum sensors. 

“What's going on behind the scenes is completely different,” Hoy said. “It's using a different starting point. It's going to be using a different code.”