10 years and counting of Quantum Science and Technology

Rob Thew

Nina Meinzer, Yanne K. Chembo, Joseph J Niemela

Dan MacIsaac

Matteo Rini

Q uantum science is a hard nut to crack-even for the brightest physicists.But 2025 might offer a pivotal moment for raising public awareness of the field and its technological implications.The United Nations' declaration of the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology (IYQ) is sparking a burst of outreach activities, with 100 events (and counting) planned globally.The year was officially kicked off on February 4-5 at an inauguration ceremony held at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) headquarters in Paris (see Research News: Curtain Rises on the Year of Quantum).At the ceremony, UNESCO unveiled its IYQ mascot, Quinnie, created by Jorge Cham, aka, PHD Comics, in collaboration with us at Physics Magazine.The mascot was developed during brainstorming sessions for a series of animated cartoons, which we will release throughout the year [1].Harnessing Cham's Quinnie and her dual sister.Credit: J. Cham Quinnie surfing on a quantum wave function.Credit: J. Cham ability to explain the most complex scientific concepts through cartoons, we hope to communicate to the broadest possible audience what we know and, perhaps more importantly, what we don't know about quantum science.To us, Quinnie represents a young generation approaching quantum science with passion, ingenuity, and energy.We imagine her effortlessly surfing on quantum-mechanical wave functions and playfully engaging with the knottiest quantum ideas, from entanglement to duality.According to a worn-out quote by Richard Feynman: "If you think you understand physics.

Yu-Xia Xie, Qiang Wu, X.C. Li +5 more

Abstract Quantum entanglement is a major research resource in quantum information science, which has obtained increasing attention and has been intensively studied experimentally in recent years. Based on 7089 research papers in the experimental field of quantum entanglement obtained from the Web of Science Core Collection database, this study investigates the 400 top-cited papers which were written by 498 first or corresponding authors from188 institutions in 32 countries/territories. This study not only relies on traditional methods with first author full counting and corresponding author full counting to present the critical authors, institutions, and countries as designers or executors but also uses distinctive methods with first/corresponding author full counting and first/corresponding author fractional counting to find the dominant players in the experimental field of quantum entanglement. Considering authors, A. Zeilinger and J.W. Pan are the most dominant scientists in this field. The University of Vienna has the best institutional performance in this field, and other institutions such as the University of Science and Technology of China also do fairly well. The results show that the USA, Germany, Austria, the UK, and mainland China fit their reputations as dominant players in the field.