Robust sensing via the standard deviation with a quantum sensor
E. D. Herbschleb,
S. Chigusa,
R. Kawase,
H. Kawashima,
M. Hazumi,
K. Nakayama,
N. Mizuochi
Affiliations
E. D. Herbschleb
Institute for Chemical Research, Kyoto University, Gokasho, Uji-city, Kyoto 611-0011, Japan
S. Chigusa
Berkeley Center for Theoretical Physics, Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
R. Kawase
Institute for Chemical Research, Kyoto University, Gokasho, Uji-city, Kyoto 611-0011, Japan
H. Kawashima
Institute for Chemical Research, Kyoto University, Gokasho, Uji-city, Kyoto 611-0011, Japan
M. Hazumi
International Center for Quantum-field Measurement Systems for Studies of the Universe and Particles (QUP), High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK), 1-1 Oho, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0801, Japan
K. Nakayama
International Center for Quantum-field Measurement Systems for Studies of the Universe and Particles (QUP), High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK), 1-1 Oho, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0801, Japan
N. Mizuochi
Institute for Chemical Research, Kyoto University, Gokasho, Uji-city, Kyoto 611-0011, Japan
Quantum sensing has a bright future for applications in need of impeccable sensitivities. The study of periodic fields has resulted in various techniques, which deal with the limited coherence time of the quantum sensor in several ways. However, the periodic signal to measure could include forms of randomness as well, such as changes in phase or in frequency. In such cases, long measurement times required to detect the smallest of field amplitudes hamper the effectiveness of conventional techniques. In this paper, we propose and explore a robust sensing technique to combat this problem. For the technique, instead of measuring the signal amplitude directly, we measure another global property of the signal, in this case the standard deviation. This results in a much-improved sensitivity. We analyze the advantages and limitations of this technique, and we demonstrate the working with a measurement using a nitrogen-vacancy center. This work encourages scouting measurements of alternative statistics.
