At a glance
| Booth | S7330 |
| Country | US |
| Website | mesaquantum.com |
Company profile
Mesa Quantum is commercializing chip-scale quantum sensors for industry, moving high-precision quantum instruments out of laboratory settings and into the hands of product developers working on practical applications. Its engineering practice focuses on what can be manufactured at scale rather than only on academic performance optimization, using iterative engineering cycles to develop products that respond to market requirements. The market requirements identified by Mesa Quantum include cost-effective and reliable sensors with low size, weight, and power consumption, or SWaP, and with production volume sufficient for industrial use. A major application direction is Alternative Position, Navigation, and Timing, or Alt-PNT, where quantum sensors are intended to provide more resilient, precise, and scalable methods for synchronization, positioning, and measurement when GPS is disrupted or unavailable. Mesa Quantum states that its sensors can provide resilience against GPS disruptions and are intended to support a path toward GPS independence for systems that require dependable position, navigation, timing, or synchronization. Its stated Alt-PNT application landscape includes autonomous systems such as self-driving cars and robotic workforces, smart energy grids, deep-sea exploration, small satellite constellations, and other dual-use technology areas. Mesa Quantum also lists current application categories including Resilient Navigation, Data Networks, Remote Sensing, Communications, Satellites, GIS, Autonomous Systems, and Financial Markets. The company's quantum-sensor architecture uses vapor cells, tiny glass containers containing vaporized alkaline-metal atoms; laser light passes through the cell and a photodetector measures how much light is transmitted versus absorbed by the atomic vapor. When disturbances such as magnetic fields or acceleration change the atoms' internal quantum states, Mesa Quantum uses the ratio of photons sent to photons received together with the relevant mathematics to determine the magnitude of the measured disturbance. The same atomic system can be used for an atomic clock by isolating the atoms from outside disturbances and using intrinsic oscillations of their states as an extremely accurate time reference. Mesa Quantum's sensor roadmap includes Atomic Clocks, Gyroscopes, Magnetometers, a Rydberg Atom Radio Frequency Sensor, Gravimeters, and Accelerometers, covering precision timing, angular motion, magnetic fields, RF fields, gravity, and changes in velocity. The company describes the targeted sensor characteristics as reproducible, low cost, small size, lightweight, low power consumption, and reliable, aligning the roadmap with manufacturable industrial hardware. Mesa Quantum has been awarded a $500,000 Colorado OEDIT Advanced Industries Early-Stage Capital and Retention Grant, announced $3.7M in seed funding for an R&D facility and technical hiring, and received a $1.9M Direct-to-Phase II SBIR contract from SpaceWERX focused on miniaturized atomic clocks for Alt-PNT.
Exhibits
Mesa Quantum develops advanced VCSELs for sensing applications by combining Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Laser design and sensing expertise to address differences between standard VCSEL designs and sensing requirements such as output power, linewidth, and temperature performance. Its tailored VCSEL solutions address quantum, biomedical, consumer, 3D, and visualization markets, linking laser design parameters directly to the requirements of different sensing applications. Quantum VCSEL applications listed by Mesa Quantum include Atomic Clocks, Magnetometers, Gravimeters, Cold Atom Interferometry, and Quantum Key Distribution. Biomedical applications include Photodynamic Therapy, Blood Monitoring, and Dental Imaging, while 3D applications include LiDAR, SWIR Imaging, and Industrial Sensing. Visualization applications include Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), and Displays, extending the VCSEL portfolio beyond quantum sensing into imaging and display-related use cases. Mesa Quantum's Multijunction VCSELs are specified with up to 10 Junctions, output power density greater than 1.5 kW/mm², and a 1/e² beam divergence angle below 20°. Its Single-Mode Single-Polarization VCSELs are specified with output power greater than 15 mW, side-mode suppression ratio greater than 30 dB, and polarization extinction ratio greater than 25 dB. Narrow Linewidth VCSELs are specified with emission linewidth below 20 MHz and wavelength tunability for quantum sensing applications. These VCSEL categories complement Mesa Quantum's chip-scale quantum-sensor work by supplying advanced light sources for atomic clocks, magnetometers, gravimeters, and other sensing systems in its listed application set.
Capabilities and products
- chip-scale quantum sensors
- atomic clocks
- quantum gyroscopes
- quantum magnetometers
- Rydberg atom radio-frequency sensors
- quantum gravimeters
- quantum accelerometers
- advanced VCSELs for sensing applications
- multijunction VCSELs
- single-mode single-polarization VCSELs
- narrow-linewidth VCSELs