Quantum metrology articles within Nature Physics

Featured

  • Review Article |

    Ultracold atoms are a well-established platform for quantum sensing and metrology. This Review discusses the enhanced sensing capabilities that molecules offer for a range of phenomena, including symmetry-violating forces and dark matter detection.

    • David DeMille
    • , Nicholas R. Hutzler
    •  & Tanya Zelevinsky

  • Measure for Measure |

    Quantum technologies change our notion of measurement. Chenyu Wang elaborates on how quantum squeezing enhances the precision of gravitational-wave interferometers.

    • Chenyu Wang

  • News & Views |

    Optical atomic clocks are extremely accurate sensors despite the poor use of their resources. A parallel quantum control approach might help to optimize the resources of optical atomic clocks, which could lead to an exponential improvement in their performance.

    • Simone Colombo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Addressing optical transitions at the level of a single site is crucial to unlock the potential of quantum computers and atomic clocks. A scheme based on atom rearrangement now demonstrates such control with demonstrable metrological benefits.

    • Adam L. Shaw
    • , Ran Finkelstein
    •  & Manuel Endres

  • News & Views |

    In principle, quantum entanglement gives advantages in radar detection even under noisy and lossy operating conditions. More than a decade after the proposal, the predicted quantum advantage has finally been demonstrated at microwave frequencies.

    • Quntao Zhuang

  • Article |

    Proposals for quantum radars have suggested that in noisy environments there may be a benefit in sensing using quantum microwaves. A superconducting circuit experiment has now confirmed an advantage exists under appropriate conditions.

    • R. Assouly
    • , R. Dassonneville
    •  & B. Huard

  • Article |

    Normally, quantum operations are thought of as being applied in a particular order, but it is possible to create superpositions of different orders. An experiment now demonstrates this indefinite causal order may give an advantage for quantum sensing.

    • Peng Yin
    • , Xiaobin Zhao
    •  & Guang-Can Guo

  • Research Briefing |

    Controlling the spatial distribution of optically active spin defects in solids is a long-standing goal in the quantum sensing and simulation communities. Measurements of the many-body noise generated by the spins were used to verify that a highly coherent and strongly interacting quantum spin system was confined to two dimensions within a diamond substrate.

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Solid-state systems are established candidates to study models of many-body physics but have limited control and readout capabilities. Ensembles of defects in diamond may provide a solution for studying dipolar systems.

    • E. J. Davis
    • , B. Ye
    •  & N. Y. Yao

  • News & Views |

    Two superconductors connected by a weak link form a Josephson junction, a nonlinear circuit element at the heart of many quantum devices. Quantized electrical current steps that were predicted decades ago have now been observed experimentally.

    • Gianluca Rastelli
    •  & Ioan M. Pop

  • Article |

    It has been predicted that Josephson junction devices could produce quantized currents in analogy to the Shapiro steps of voltage used to define the voltage standard. These dual Shapiro steps have now been observed in a Josephson junction array.

    • Nicolò Crescini
    • , Samuel Cailleaux
    •  & Nicolas Roch

  • News & Views |

    ‘Squeezing’ of light can be used to alter the distribution of quantum noise to benefit quantum sensing and other applications. An improved design for a microwave photon squeezer provides high performance over a large bandwidth.

    • Baleegh Abdo

  • Letter
    | Open Access

    A scanning nitrogen-vacancy microscope is used to image ferroelectric domains in piezoelectric and improper ferroelectric samples with high sensitivity. The technique relies on the nitrogen-vacancy’s Stark shift produced by the samples’ electric field.

    • William S. Huxter
    • , Martin F. Sarott
    •  & Christian L. Degen

  • Letter |

    Interspecies comparisons between atomic optical clocks are important for several technological applications. A recently proposed spectroscopy technique extends the interrogation times of clocks, leading to highly stable comparison between species.

    • May E. Kim
    • , William F. McGrew
    •  & David R. Leibrandt

  • Article |

    Hexagonal boron nitride is a common component of 2D heterostructures. Defects implanted in boron nitride crystals can be used to perform spatially resolved sensing of properties, including temperature, magnetism and current.

    • A. J. Healey
    • , S. C. Scholten
    •  & J.-P. Tetienne

  • News & Views |

    Ensembles of weakly interacting atoms have enabled some of the most precise measurements ever made. Now researchers have shown that making these atoms work together in a strongly interacting regime can boost sensitivity by orders of magnitude.

    • Shannon Whitlock

  • Article |

    Interacting quantum systems near criticality have been proposed as potential probes for quantum metrology. An experiment with Rydberg atoms now proves the enhanced sensitivity of critical many-body systems to small variations in external parameters.

    • Dong-Sheng Ding
    • , Zong-Kai Liu
    •  & Charles S. Adams

  • Article |

    Long-lived entanglement is a key resource for quantum metrology with optical clocks. Rydberg-based entangling gates within arrays of neutral atoms enable the generation of clock-transition Bell states with high fidelity and long coherence times.

    • Nathan Schine
    • , Aaron W. Young
    •  & Adam M. Kaufman

  • Article |

    The standard quantum limit bounds the precision of quantum measurements. Now, a protocol based on time-reversal operations with cold atoms overcomes that limit and achieves the greatest phase sensitivity improvement in any full Ramsey interferometer.

    • Simone Colombo
    • , Edwin Pedrozo-Peñafiel
    •  & Vladan Vuletić

  • Comment |

    Emerging quantum technologies pose new measurement challenges, but also offer previously unknown measurement solutions. National metrology institutes are playing a leading role in this fast evolving world.

    • Alexander Tzalenchuk
    • , Nicolas Spethmann
    •  & Barbara L. Goldstein

  • Measure for Measure |

    The shift of the definition of the kilogram in 2019 away from an artefact to one relying on the Planck constant inspires technological innovation, as Naoki Kuramoto elucidates.

    • Naoki Kuramoto

  • News & Views |

    Entanglement can provide an extra boost in precision, but entangled states are hard to detect. A recent experiment solves this problem by letting the entangling dynamics come full circle — or not, depending on the subtle perturbation to be sensed.

    • Philipp Kunkel
    •  & Monika Schleier-Smith

  • Article |

    Nonlinear interferometry based on time reversal enables entanglement-enhanced measurements without the need for low-noise detection. An alternative approach now exploits cyclic dynamics and shows performance beyond the standard quantum limit.

    • Qi Liu
    • , Ling-Na Wu
    •  & Li You

  • Article |

    A search for axion-like dark matter with a quantum sensor that enhances potential signals is reported. This work constrains the parameter space of different interactions between nucleons and axion-like particles and between nucleons and dark photons.

    • Min Jiang
    • , Haowen Su
    •  & Dmitry Budker

  • Letter |

    When interactions between electrons in a material are strong, they can start to behave hydrodynamically. Spatially resolved imaging of current flow in a three-dimensional material suggests that electron–electron interactions are mediated by phonons.

    • Uri Vool
    • , Assaf Hamo
    •  & Amir Yacoby

  • Article |

    The hyperfine states of ultracold polar molecules are a strong candidate for storing quantum information. Identifying and eliminating all detectable causes of decoherence has extended the qubit coherence time beyond 5.6 s in RbCs molecules.

    • Philip D. Gregory
    • , Jacob A. Blackmore
    •  & Simon L. Cornish

  • Article |

    Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen entanglement between a millimetre-size mechanical membrane oscillator and a collective atomic spin oscillator formed by an ensemble of caesium atoms is achieved, although the two systems are spatially separated by one metre.

    • Rodrigo A. Thomas
    • , Michał Parniak
    •  & Eugene S. Polzik

  • Article |

    A weak-to-strong quantum measurement transition has been observed in a single-trapped-ion system, where the ion’s internal electronic state and its vibrational motion play the roles of the measured system and the measuring pointer.

    • Yiming Pan
    • , Jie Zhang
    •  & Nir Davidson

  • Article |

    Ultracold alkaline-earth fermionic atoms with large number of nuclear spin states possess SU(N) symmetry. That deeply affects their interaction properties, and allows a Fermi gas of these atoms to be cooled quickly to the quantum degenerate regime.

    • Lindsay Sonderhouse
    • , Christian Sanner
    •  & Jun Ye

  • Article |

    An adaptive heterodyne technique with a Josephson parametric amplifier detector allows a high-precision single-shot canonical phase measurement on a one-photon wave packet, complementing near-ideal measurements of photon number or field amplitude.

    • Leigh S. Martin
    • , William P. Livingston
    •  & Irfan Siddiqi

  • News & Views |

    Squeezed light is useful for metrology and quantum information. An optomechanical squeezed light source that works at room temperature will facilitate the technological applications of quantum light.

    • André Xuereb

  • Article |

    The ability to create optomechanically squeezed light at room temperature across a frequency range in the audio band could improve the measurement precision of future interferometric detectors for gravitational waves.

    • Nancy Aggarwal
    • , Torrey J. Cullen
    •  & Nergis Mavalvala

  • Review Article |

    Hybrid quantum systems combine heterogeneous physical systems for the implementation of new functionalities at the quantum level. This article reviews recent research on the creation of hybrid quantum systems within the circuit quantum electrodynamics framework.

    • A. A. Clerk
    • , K. W. Lehnert
    •  & Y. Nakamura

  • News & Views |

    The demonstration of high-resolution spectroscopy of Sr2 molecules trapped in an optical lattice at the ‘magic’ wavelength opens the way to precision control of molecular excitations.

    • Nicola Poli

  • Letter |

    The realization of a molecular lattice clock based on vibrations in diatomic molecules is reported with coherence times lasting over tens of milliseconds, which is enabled by the use of a state-insensitive magic lattice trap.

    • S. S. Kondov
    • , C.-H. Lee
    •  & T. Zelevinsky

  • Measure for Measure |

    Superconducting quantum interference devices can accurately measure temperatures even below 1 mK, but there’s more to them — as Thomas Schurig explains.

    • Thomas Schurig

  • Research Highlight |

    • Stefanie Reichert

Browse broader subjects

Browse Quantum metrology across other nature.com journals