*In this photo:* Drs. Gour Pati and Renu Tripathi are the co-directors of a new DoD Center of Excellence in Advance Quantum Sensing at the University, funded by a five-year $7.5 million Department of Defense grant. Not pictured are co-principal investigators are Dr. Deborah Santamore, Dr. Jun Ren, as well as Dr. Matthew Bobrowski, who is a senior key personnel member on the project.

On Campus, Grants and Donations

University receives $7.5M grant for Quantum Sensing Center

Wednesday, October 21, 2020

The U.S. Department of Defense has awarded Delaware State University a five-year $7.5 million research grant to establish a DoD Center of Excellence in Advanced Quantum Sensing (CoE-AQS) on campus.

The University is one of four Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Minority Serving Institutions (HBCU/MSI) that have been awarded grants through the DoD’s Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering to focus its work in defense priority areas.

Dr. Gour S. Pati, Del State Professor of Physics and Engineering, is the principal investigator and director of CoE-AQS. The co-principal investigator are the following Physics and Engineering researchers: Dr. Renu Tripathi, Professor and co-director of the center. Other investigators include: Dr. Deborah Santamore (Co-PI), Professor; Dr. Jun Ren (Co-PI), Associate Professor; as well as Dr. Matthew Bobrowski (Sr. Key Personnel), Visiting Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy. All investigators are faculty members from the Division of Physics, Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science (PEMaCS) within the University’s College of Agriculture, Science and Technology.

This award will establish a Center dedicated to providing a distinctive research program in quantum sensing and prioritizing quantum information science-related education. The Del State researchers will collaborate with Northwestern University to leverage that institution’s expertise in the area of quantum sensing. They have also planned collaborative research with DoD labs, including the Army Research Laboratory and the Naval Research Laboratory.

Quantum sensing technology provides new avenues for improving sensitivity and precision of physical measurements (such as time, electromagnetic field, rotation, acceleration, gravity, etc.) beyond classical limits. It has growing relevance in applications ranging from enabling inertial navigation to understanding the human brain.

Over the next five years, the Center will conduct innovative research and disseminate new knowledge in quantum sensing, as well as provide comprehensive education and training programs within the physics and engineering curriculum to traditionally underrepresented students.

Specifically, the Center’s research will focus on:

Realizing entanglement-enhanced quantum sensing – in the form of spin squeezing – in atomic clocks and magnetometers using cold atom platforms.
Exploring precision rotation sensing and accelerometry using a spin-squeezed, light pulse atom interferometer.
Addressing practical issues (e.g. coherence time anomaly and decoherence) in solid-state, spin-based quantum sensors, such as silicon carbide sensors and nitrogen-vacancy sensors.

The Center’s work will also provide dedicated education and training opportunities in quantum information science and sensing for students and thereby help create a diverse and capable next-generation workforce in this quantum technology arena.

“We congratulate Delaware State University for winning this award and are excited about the opportunity to work with them,” said Dr. Fredrik Fatemi, Army Research Laboratory Cooperative Agreement Manager. “We look forward to the discoveries DSU will make in quantum sensing.”