The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is building a robust open-source hardware and software Quantum Electro-Mechanical Metrology Suite (QEMMS) that can provide quantum voltage, resistance, current, mass, and force dissemination directly traceable to the new SI. The goal is to develop a self-calibrating SI system that is turn-key and fit-for-purpose for primary standard laboratories and other national metrology institutes.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is building a robust open-source hardware and software Quantum Electro-Mechanical Metrology Suite (QEMMS) that can provide quantum voltage, resistance, current, mass, and force dissemination directly traceable to the new SI. The goal is to develop a self-calibrating SI system that is turn-key and fit-for-purpose for primary standard laboratories and other national metrology institutes.
Advances in quantum mechanics have long underpinned metrology by enabling practical realizations of units through quantum effects. With the 2019 SI revision, traceability is anchored in defined fundamental constants, reinforcing the quantum-mechanical basis of modern standards. In parallel, quantum technologies are transitioning from laboratory science to engineering and early industrial deployment, bringing familiar pressures for integration, reliability, cost reduction, supply-chain formation, and standardization. The direction of benefit is thus reversing: metrology and precision measurement are becoming enabling infrastructure for the industrialization of quantum technologies. Against this backdrop, this paper surveys the metrology and precision-measurement capabilities required across representative quantum-computing modalities and identifies where electrical and related metrology can contribute to the development, characterization, and reliable operation of quantum hardware. We then discuss cross-cutting measurement needs and standardization opportunities that recur across platforms, and note how similar frameworks can extend to emerging quantum-sensing applications.
The ongoing second quantum revolution will lead to unprecedented technological capabilities opening up important scientific progress and business opportunities. The worldwide investments in quantum technology are important in the academic as well as in the industrial sector. However, these new technologies must also be duly characterised and calibrated with measurements traceable to the International System of Units, as it is the standard today for classical technologies. An accessible and fit for purpose testing infrastructure for quantum technology is thus clearly needed. In this paper we give an overview of our vision of a Swiss metrology competence centre for quantum technologies at the Swiss Federal Institute of Metrology METAS and highlight the present state of the recent developments.
Emerging technologies demand innovations in metrology: • Agility – to keep pace with a rapidly changing technical landscape; • Ability – to develop novel, perhaps first-ever, measurement capabilities; • Comparability and interoperability – across vendors, in commercial timeframes; • Accelerated delivery – because formal standards may be obsolete by the time they’re published. The same quantum technologies that have revolutionized metrology, such as Josephson junctions that are used to create the world’s most accurate voltage standards and ion traps that are used in time and frequency standards, also underpin emerging new markets in quantum computing, networking and sensing – and these quantum-based products require entirely new approaches for measurement and characterization. The world’s metrology institutes have been at the forefront of the quantum revolution, being both early developers and adopters of quantum technologies for metrology, and are uniquely poised to spearhead the development of metrology for quantum – those measurements and related standards needed by industry to underpin quantum-based products. The metrology community is positioned to create trust in the emerging quantum economy due to its long history of objectivity, neutrality and international collaboration; anticipating industry’s needs to be ready with rigorous measurement capabilities as technologies evolve; and its having formed institutions such as the CIPM, BIPM and IMEKO to support collaborative efforts. The BIPM hosted a workshop in March 2024 which brought together 149 participants from 43 NMIs and designated institutes (DIs) from 39 economies, along with industry representatives, to discuss how best to leverage the expertise of the worlds national metrology institutes (NMIs) and their designated institutes (DIs) to accelerate the development and adoption of quantum technologies through measurements and standards. The workshop supported coordinated development and sharing of measurement “best practices” in support of future standardization, the mission of a new collaborative initiative referred to as NMI-Q. The NMI-Q organizing committee, comprised of representatives of the NMIs of Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, are working on a cooperation framework inspired by the successful VAMAS organization, which conducts coordinated pre-standardization work in material science. NMI-Q has initiated early work in quantum photonics, and expects to expand to a breadth of technical areas, such as measurement and characterization to support multiple quantum computing platforms, quantum networking models, and sensing modalities.
The UK National Quantum Technology Hub in Sensors and Metrology is one of four flagship initiatives in the UK National of Quantum Technology Program. As part of a 20-year vision it translates laboratory demonstrations to deployable practical devices, with game-changing miniaturized components and prototypes that transform the state-of-the-art for quantum sensors and metrology. It brings together experts from the Universities of Birmingham, Glasgow, Nottingham, Southampton, Strathclyde and Sussex, NPL and currently links to over 15 leading international academic institutions and over 70 companies to build the supply chains and routes to market needed to bring 10–1000x improvements in sensing applications. It seeks, and is open to, additional partners for new application development and creates a point of easy open access to the facilities and supply chains that it stimulates or nurtures.