David Layden - Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Sensors based on quantum effects can measure various external quantities, such as magnetic fields, with high precision. Moreover, their sensitivity can scale more favourably with their size than is allowed classically — a property analogous to quantum speedups in computing. As with quantum computers, the performance of quantum sensors is limited by decoherence. Quantum error correction (QEC) has recently emerged as a promising approach to mitigate this decoherence, and therefore, to enhance sensitivity. However, the goal of QEC is critically different in quantum sensors than in quantum computers: it should filter noise from signal in a sensor, not suppress the environment's impact altogether. To this end, I will present a new type of error-correction scheme, which filters out the dominant noise type in many quantum sensors by exploiting spatial properties of this noise. This novel approach to error correction can offer enhanced sensitivity using only a few qubits.