Research Areas - (4) Protein / Fluorophore Spin Qubits

Full path: Physics > Quantum Sensing > Nanodiamonds > Functionalized Nanodiamonds > Protein / Fluorophore Spin Qubits

David Awschalom 🔗
Argonne National Laboratory 🔗 University of Chicago 🔗
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Department(s)/lab(s): Physics / PME | Awschalom Group @ UChicago
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Pioneer in spintronics and quantum information engineering. Research spans: (1) NV-center spin qubits in diamond for quantum sensing and communication including nanomagnetic imaging; (2) spin defects in SiC and Er-doped hosts for quantum network nodes at telecom wavelengths; (3) molecular and protein-based spin qubits (2025 fluorescent-protein spin qubit, Physics World Top-10); (4) coherent Er spin defects in colloidal nanocrystal hosts (2024, with Alivisatos). Founding Director Chicago Quantum Exchange. Joint Senior Scientist Argonne. Large infrastructure-rich group with strong industry ties (IBM, Intel, Google quantum).

Aaron Esser-Kahn 🔗
University of Chicago 🔗
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Department(s)/lab(s): PME | Esser-Kahn Lab @ UChicago
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Primary focus: immune engineering for vaccines and cancer immunotherapy. Quantum sensing relevance: co-authored 2025 fluorescent-protein spin qubit paper (Physics World Top-10) with Maurer and Awschalom, contributing protein engineering expertise to develop biological alternatives to NV centers. Collaborates on quantum biosensors for real-time monitoring of immune cell activity (Chan Zuckerberg Biohub). Primarily a collaboration gateway for NV biosensing rather than standalone quantum sensing PI.

Anke Krueger 🔗
University of Stuttgart 🔗
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Department(s)/lab(s): Chemistry | Krueger Group (Institute of Organic Chemistry) @ Stuttgart
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Krueger's chemistry group develops diamond and nanodiamond surface chemistry, functionalization and bioconjugation that make NV centres viable, shallow, coherent quantum sensors for chemical and biological targets - the materials-chemistry enabler for NV ensemble sensing. She co-leads Stuttgart's quantum-technologies profile. In the broader landscape of NV-centre ensemble quantum sensing (DEER, nano-NMR, T1 relaxometry) operating near pT/sqrt(Hz) sensitivity, this work is enabled at the surface-chemistry level by this work.

Peter Maurer 🔗
Argonne National Laboratory 🔗 University of Chicago 🔗
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Department(s)/lab(s): PME | Maurer Lab @ UChicago
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Develops quantum sensing platforms at the biology interface. Core NV-center work: (1) widefield NV magnetic imaging of action potentials in neurons and cardiac tissue; (2) NV-based single-molecule NMR at 14 T resolving molecular structure with single-molecule sensitivity; (3) charge-sensitive shallow NV nanoprobes monitoring real-time cellular electrophysiology; (4) biocompatible diamond surface functionalization enabling multiplexed DNA microarray biosensing; (5) fluorescent-protein spin qubits as biological alternatives to diamond NV (2025 paper, Physics World Top-10 Breakthrough). Runs full NV stack: hot implantation, widefield and confocal ODMR, T1/T2/Hahn echo/DEER/Rabi, automated fitting pipelines. 2026 Sloan Fellow. PhD Lukin/Harvard; postdoc Chu/Stanford. Argonne joint appointment.