A map of Earth’s gravity. Red indicates areas of the world that exert greater gravitational pull, while blue indicates areas that exert less. A science-grade quantum gravity gradiometer could one day make maps like this with unprecedented accuracy. Credit: NASA

NASA’s Breakthrough Quantum Gravity Sensor for Space

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory is developing the first-ever space-based quantum gravity sensor that uses ultra-cold atoms to detect minute gravitational variations from orbit, potentially revolutionizing how we map Earth’s hidden features and explore distant planets.

The tree diagram shows three perspectives for evaluating the sensitivity limits (green leaves). These perspectives are interconnected (red dashed lines) and are constrained by fundamental principles (blue sources connected to the roots). Credit: ©Science China Press

Quantum Magnetometry: Pushing Limits of Sensitivity & Physics

Quantum magnetometers leverage quantum particles’ unique properties to detect extremely small magnetic fields, with their ultimate sensitivity limits governed by quantum noise, parameter estimation theory, and energy resolution constraints that help define their true “quantumness.”

Quantum sensing with duplex qubits of silicon vacancy centers in SiC at room temperature

Quantum sensing with duplex qubits of silicon vacancy centers in SiC at room temperature

Silicon vacancy centers in Silicon Carbide show promise as room-temperature qubits for quantum sensing applications, with researchers demonstrating that simultaneously operating both transitions in the spin-3/2 quartet through a novel duplex qubit scheme doubles the signal contrast and improves sensitivity compared to conventional single-qubit approaches.

Conceptual schematic and performance advantage of the in-cavity protocol.

Quantum-Enhanced Dark Matter Detection Beyond Rayleigh Limits

Researchers propose a novel quantum sensing protocol that uses in-cavity squeezed states and optimized transient control to mitigate the Rayleigh curse limitation, enabling more sensitive dark matter detection in microwave cavities without requiring non-Gaussian quantum resources that would be incompatible with the strong magnetic fields needed for axion searches.

Experimental setup and NV center.

Nanoscale electric field imaging with an ambient scanning quantum sensor microscope

A team of researchers successfully developed a scanning probe quantum sensor using a single nitrogen-vacancy center at a diamond tip that can image both AC and DC electric fields at nanoscale resolution under ambient conditions, achieving sensitivities two orders of magnitude better than previous attempts and overcoming electric field screening through mechanical oscillation techniques.