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In 2020, the European Union introduced the Strategic Research Agenda for the Quantum Flagship to guide Europe’s quantum research and innovation. While quantum computing has garnered significant attention, quantum sensors represent an equally transformative branch of quantum technologies. These sensors exploit quantum mechanics, such as entanglement, to achieve unprecedented measurement precision, detecting minute variations in temperature, gravity, acceleration, and time. This enables advanced applications like autonomous vehicles capable of “seeing” around corners, underwater navigation, early warning systems for natural disasters, and portable brain activity scanners. Quantum sensors can measure extremely weak signals, such as the magnetic field of a single neuron, offering broad potential across medicine, environmental monitoring, logistics, space exploration, and defense.
Quantum sensors also promise to revolutionize fields like biomedicine through their high sensitivity and specificity, allowing non-invasive, multimodal imaging that distinguishes subtle molecular differences. Practical uses include quantum gravimetry for oil exploration, climate monitoring, GPS-independent navigation, precision agriculture, and real-time detection of greenhouse gases. Despite these advances, challenges remain in scaling down size, reducing cost, and overcoming susceptibility to interference. Innovations like diamond-based quantum sensors integrated on silicon chips signal progress toward mass-produced, room-temperature devices. Governments and industries worldwide are investing heavily, with market-ready products expected within three to five years, initially focusing on medical and defense sectors. The future of quantum sensing is poised to significantly impact science, technology, and society.
The combination of quantum computing and sensors with AI has the potential to accelerate innovation exponentially.
In 2020, the European Union presented the Strategic Research Agenda for the Quantum Flagship, a document that aims to set a clear direction for the future development of quantum research and innovation in Europe. While quantum computers attract all the attention, quantum sensors could be equally transformative, enabling the production of autonomous vehicles capable of ‘seeing’ behind corners, underwater navigation and early warning systems for volcanic activity and earthquakes, and portable scanners that monitor a person’s brain activity during their everyday life.
Quantum sensors constitute one of the three branches of Quantum Technologies (QT) along with Quantum Computing and Quantum Communication; They use attributes of quantum mechanics such as entanglement, and have increased the accuracy of measurement methods, connectivity and interactions with the environment. These sensors, in fact, achieve extreme levels of precision by taking advantage of the quantum nature of matter, using, for example, the difference between electrons in different energy states as the basic unit.
In particular, quantum sensors detect the extreme sensitivity of quantum states to perturbations and are able to measure small differences in temperature, acceleration, gravity, or time. In this way, it is possible to create devices for positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) that guarantee more accurate measurements, detection of weaker signals and the possibility of exceeding the fundamental limits imposed by classical physics.
For example, a quantum sensor can measure the magnetic field of a single neuron in the brain, while a classical sensor can only measure the magnetic field of a group of neurons. This makes them promising for a wide range of applications in different sectors, from medical, chemical and pharmaceutical, to energy and environment, logistics and transport, space exploration and defence.
The increased sensitivity of quantum sensing technologies, coupled with their greater specificity, better accuracy in information collection, non-invasive nature, and multimodal imaging characteristics, is redefining biomedicine, as sensors can recognize relatively minute variations in physical or chemical characteristics and distinguish between strongly related molecules or signals. increasing its specificity and sensitivity.
The possible uses are many. For example, quantum gravimetry is beginning to be used in the detection of oil wells to probe the subsurface without drilling. In scientific research and climatology, quantum sensors can offer an extraordinary contribution to monitoring the planet and its changes, while in navigation they serve to help keep the planet on course without external landmarks.
Also in the military field, quantum sensing in the sky, sea or roads can be used for guidance in situations where GPS is not available, as quantum sensors are invulnerable and suitable for use in all weather conditions. A classic application is that of submarine deck navigation.
Potential applications of these sensors also include agriculture and the detection of environmental risks. On the one hand, they are propaedeutics for the implementation of the precision agriculture, allowing farmers to optimize irrigation and fertilization practices; on the other, quantum sensors can be used to measure atmospheric gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane, responsible for climate change in real time.
The combination of quantum computing and quantum sensors with artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to accelerate innovation exponentially, as explained in thereport of the Future Trends Forum on quantum computing of the Bankinter Innovation Foundation. However, the challenge now is to translate these advances from experimental environments to real, scalable and robust applications, and to work in the policy and regulatory arena to ensure that these technologies do not increase inequalities or be used unethically.
In fact, most quantum sensing systems are still expensive, oversized, and complex, but a new generation of smaller, more accessible sensors should soon open up new possibilities. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have used conventional manufacturing methods to integrate a diamond-based quantum sensor onto a silicon chip, compressing traditionally bulky components onto a surface a few tenths of a millimeter wide. The prototype is a step toward low-cost, mass-produced devices that operate at room temperature and could be used for any application involving precise measurements of weak magnetic fields.
It should also be said that quantum systems are still extremely susceptible to interference, which could limit their application to controlled environments. But governments and companies are investing in this and other challenges: the UK, for example, has invested €370 million in the second phase of its National Quantum Computing Programme (2019-2024). Industry analysts expect quantum sensors to hit the market within approximately three to five years, with an initial emphasis on medical and defense applications. The path is already marked.
