All About Quantum Information Science: Sensing

Join C2ST for a Facebook Live & C2ST YouTube TV event with expert Dr. Rakshya Khatiwada from the Illinois Institute of Technology.

Senses are essential for animals and humans to survive! Whether it’s touching, smelling, seeing, or hearing, we all use different senses to communicate and detect what is happening in our surroundings. Computers and machines can also sense their environment and activities happening around them, though they do not use ears and noses, but rather sensors. Scientists have been using sensors that measure things like matter and energy for a long time. One can detect the smallest unit of energy with Quantum sensors’ with unprecedented precision that traditional sensors simply do not possess. Whether it’s a photon or an electron, a quantum sensor, ideally, is designed to pick up the smallest, discrete building block or unit of energy or measurement. These quanta of measurement, however, are very sensitive to any external influences such as light, heat, and magnetic fields. Due to this sensitivity, experts are able to measure tiny changes, hence their ability to be extremely precise! The tricky part is isolating the quanta from the environmental influences that scientists don’t want to measure. So, how do we isolate these quanta to perform desired measurements? What exactly do experts use quantum sensors for and how? Join C2ST and our expert to learn more.

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