Quantum sensing
Quantum sensing promises to unlock measurement capabilities defined only by fundamental constants. This is particularly evident in superconducting technologies like Kinetic Inductance Detectors (KIDs), Bolometers, and Quantum Capacitance Detectors (QCDs). These sensors offer distinct advantages for astronomy and qubit readout: vanishingly low dark counts, high speed, and the potential for massive scalability. Whether it is a photon hitting a KID, heat warming a nanobolometer, or electron tunneling in a QCD, the detection event causes a subtle shift in the resonator’s frequency or impedance. The engineering challenge is multiplexing: to make these practical, you must read out thousands of sensors (pixels) simultaneously through a single cryostat line to minimize heat load. This requires generating a precise "comb" of probe tones and tracking the complex response of every individual sensor in real-time. Traditional instruments are too slow to scale and lack the onboard processing power for real-time analysis. Presto solves this by offering complete measurement freedom. Whether you need to work in the time domain (pulse sequences), the frequency domain (FFT/PSD), or perform massive multi-frequency lock-in detection, Presto adapts to your physics. This flexibility enables you to multiplex thousands of sensors across a wide bandwidth, reading out large arrays of KIDs, bolometers, and resonator-based sensors with zero crosstalk. Discover how our platform is enabling the readout of next-generation sensor arrays in the application notes below.
