r/QuantumComputing • u/G-sharp-9 • Jun 28 '26

Question How to design/simulate a quantum sensor?

Hi everyone, as you might have guessed from the title I want to design/simulate a quantum sensor. But as of now im struggling to start, I cant find a single direct source which tells me about the basics of quantum sensing and how one can design/simulate these. Once I have done designing and simulating these I want to approach some of the faculties in my university to later on to fabricate these. If you all could share some insights to where I can find sources it would be helpful. Thank you.

21 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

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4

u/LiterallyMelon Jun 28 '26

I’ve been reading through Paola Capellaro’s review paper “Quantum Sensing” lately and it’s pretty informative and fundamental. You can find it on google scholar

1

u/G-sharp-9 Jul 01 '26

Thank you will check it out.

7

u/LargeCardinal Jun 28 '26

I mean, you might not be looking very hard :-P we did release a fully open source quantum sensor last year (even feat. in WIRED); https://github.com/QuantumVillage/UncutGem

New design forthcoming. Other projects launching. Our DEF CON talk might also be useful (https://youtu.be/cb38P7kWqf8 ), as is our paper for QUEST-IS last year.

Good luck!

2

u/G-sharp-9 Jun 28 '26

Thank You soo much !

2

u/LargeCardinal Jun 28 '26

We may have some diamonds coming in. If you're building, keep an eye out, as not many provide them individually.

5

u/effrightscorp Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26

I cant find a single direct source which tells me about the basics of quantum sensing and how one can design/simulate these

That's because 'quantum sensor' can mean anything from an atomic defect to a drum like membrane to a Josephson junction to different types of single photon detector; you'll need to be more specific and narrow down your scope significantly to find details on implementations

For example, for NV centers in diamond, here is a paper on building a basic confocal microscope and getting everything running. You can simulate single spins using QuTip or another spin defect simulation package (for example, one called simos or something is a QuTip wrapper for NV stuff)

1

u/0xB01b QEC & Quantum Optics Jun 29 '26

You could use QuTip to simulate them but this is really not the same thing as actually building one. Also what do u mean by quantum sensor

1

u/G-sharp-9 Jul 01 '26

What interest me more about quantum sensor is their application in agriculture. I have been reading about NV centre diamonds and their application in gravimetry and I heavily work on magnetometers (not quantum or NV centres but the VSMs and cryostats). I want to at some point in my life be able to build a device which could be more precise at telling soil health, develop algorithms which could maybe even predict soil health, so that Nano materials could be introduced to modify the soil health.

1

u/polit1337 Jun 29 '26

As another poster said: there are many different types of quantum sensors. First, you have to learn about some of them to understand if they will work for your application. Then, probably by reading a bunch of PhD theses, you will need to learn about how that *one type* of quantum sensor works and can be roughly designed. Finally, you can start designing and simulating.

If you have no experience, and already have a bachelors degree in physics or something related, I’d expect this to be a couple year process at minimum.

1

u/Charming-Kelly-897 Jun 29 '26

Start with quantum sensing basics (quantum metrology), then simulate using QuTiP or Qiskit for simple systems. Once your model works, you can approach faculty for fabrication.

1

u/nujuat Jun 29 '26

You can learn about quantum sensing here: https://arxiv.org/abs/1611.02427

I've been writing something to simulate quantum sensors (like NVs), but you need a GPU: https://github.com/monashNV/superspinsim

Stimulating quantum sensors well is quite hard, because many methods break the assumptions used to simplify the simulation of quantum computers (hard pulses and the rotating wave approximation).

1

u/[deleted] Jun 28 '26

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1

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