Quantum sensors

Instruments that use quantum effects to measure magnetic fields, gravity, rotation and time with extreme precision.

China leads quantum sensors research, with 22.5% of the 10% most cited papers published 2021–2025; the United States is second with 21.5%.

Added 14 October 2026. Its top papers were checked for relevance by AI, but its keywords and topic list have not yet been reviewed by hand.

FirstChina22.5%

SecondUnited States21.5%

1.0×lead, by share of the 10% most cited papers, 2021–2025

Highlight a country

Standings

1CNChina22.5%2USUnited States21.5%3DEGermany10.2%4GBUnited Kingdom8.4%5FRFrance5.2%6ITItaly3.3%7–8NLNetherlands3.0%7–8JPJapan2.9%9–10AUAustralia2.4%9–10CHSwitzerland2.1%

Share of the 10% most cited papers, 2021–2025; 416 papers. Source: OpenAlex, pulled 18 October 2026. Method

Year by year

About 83 papers a year. Single-year moves are noise.

Share of the 10% most cited papers published in each year. Source: OpenAlex, pulled 18 October 2026. Method

Inside the field

Always the top 10%Pilot

Each paper sorted into one sub-area by an AI model reading its title and abstract, then credited as usual. On 200 hand-labelled papers it chose the same sub-area, or a defensible second, 92% of the time.

Sub-area	Papers	First	Second	Third
Diamond nitrogen-vacancy sensors	97	USUnited States24.4%	CNChina16.7%	DEGermany16.6%
Quantum metrology theory and entanglement-enhanced sensing	63	CNChina24.3%	USUnited States14.2%	ITItaly10.1%
Optically pumped magnetometers and magnetoencephalography	55	CNChina31.8%	GBUnited Kingdom30.7%	USUnited States10.4%
Spin defects in boron nitride, silicon carbide and other materials	50	USUnited States33.3%	CNChina16.7%	AUAustralia11.2%
Atom interferometers, gravimeters and Rydberg-atom sensors	34	USUnited States29.4%	DEGermany19.8%	FRFrance19.1%
Quantum imaging, photonic sensing and quantum radar	19	CNChina21.1%	USUnited States11.2%	GBUnited Kingdom10.0%
Magnonic and optomechanical hybrid systems	10	USUnited States44.1%	ITItaly10.0%	NLNetherlands8.8%

Share of each sub-area's papers in the top 10%. Source: OpenAlex, pulled 18 October 2026. Method

Earlier and recent

The same top 10%, split into 2021–2023 and 2024–2025.

FallingRising2021–20232024–2025Change

CNChina 19.4%25.7%+6.2 pts

USUnited States 20.5%22.6%+2.2 pts

DEGermany 10.5%10.0%−0.5 pts

GBUnited Kingdom 11.8%5.0%−6.8 pts

FRFrance 5.5%4.8%−0.7 pts

ITItaly 3.4%3.2%−0.1 pts

NLNetherlands 4.1%1.8%−2.2 pts

JPJapan 2.8%2.9%+0.1 pts

Greyed rows rest on fewer than five papers of credit in one period.

Share of the 10% most cited papers: 209 papers in 2021–2023, 207 in 2024–2025. Source: OpenAlex, pulled 18 October 2026. Method

2026 so far: a different count

Not the most cited papers: every 2026 paper matched so far (920), and a paper counts in full for each country on it. This year's papers are too new to rank by citations, so these shares cannot be compared with the ones above.

CNChina35.7%of 2026 papers have an author here
USUnited States19.0%of 2026 papers have an author here
DEGermany11.7%of 2026 papers have an author here
JPJapan8.7%of 2026 papers have an author here
GBUnited Kingdom5.5%of 2026 papers have an author here

Who cites the top papers

How much more often a country's top papers are cited from home than its size predicts. Expected is the country's share of all papers in the field; the bar is the excess, in percentage points. Home citers include authors citing their own earlier work.

HomeExpectedExcess

USUnited States 33.3%19.1%+14.2

CNChina 61.0%34.6%+26.4

DEGermany 23.8%13.6%+10.2

Based on up to 100 of each country's most cited single-country papers in the top 10%. Source: OpenAlex, pulled 18 October 2026. Method

Behind the share

Institutions with the most credit

1CNUniversity of Science and Technology of China4.6%
2CNBeihang University3.7%
3GBUniversity of Nottingham2.4%
4USPurdue University West Lafayette1.7%
5DEUniversität Ulm1.5%
6USHarvard University1.4%
7USUniversity of California, Berkeley1.1%
8DELeibniz University Hannover1.1%
9CHETH Zurich1.1%
10CNCAS Key Laboratory of Quantum Information, USTCResearch facility1.0%

Share of the top 10%. Institutions across all 45 technologies

Who does the work

Sector	All	CN	US	DE
Universities	70.2%	81.1%	73.8%	67.6%
Research facilities	20.0%	13.9%	16.7%	24.6%
Government labs	4.3%	4.2%	2.6%	5.2%
Companies	2.7%	0.4%	5.6%	1.5%

Share of credit by type of institution, overall and for the three leading countries.

Across borders

47.6% of the top 10% have authors in more than one country.

DEUSGermany with United States24
GBUSUnited Kingdom with United States21
CNDEChina with Germany14
FRUSFrance with United States14
CNHKChina with Hong Kong10

Most frequent pairings, by number of shared papers.

The papers behind the numbers

The five most cited papers this definition catches. If one looks out of place, the definition needs work.

Quantum sensing for gravity cartography
Nature, 2022GB
295citations
Spin defects in hBN as promising temperature, pressure and magnetic field quantum sensors
Nature Communications, 2021AUCADERU
293citations
Room temperature coherent control of spin defects in hexagonal boron nitride
Science Advances, 2021AUCADE
218citations
A Molecular Approach to Quantum Sensing
ACS Central Science, 2021US
213citations
Toward Quantitative Bio-sensing with Nitrogen–Vacancy Center in Diamond
ACS Sensors, 2021CNCZHKIN
208citations

How this technology is defined

A paper counts if its title or abstract matches the search below. Articles in core journals and proceedings only; retracted papers are excluded.

"quantum sensing" OR "quantum sensor" OR "quantum metrology" OR "atom interferometer" OR "atom interferometry" OR "optically pumped magnetometer" OR "NV center" OR "nitrogen-vacancy"

and its main topic in OpenAlex is one of: Diamond and Carbon-based Materials Research; Quantum Information and Cryptography; Atomic and Subatomic Physics Research; Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates; Mechanical and Optical Resonators; Quantum optics and atomic interactions; Geophysics and Gravity Measurements. The topic check removes papers that only mention the technology.

Papers matched, 2021–2025: 4,132
In the top 10%: 416
In the top 1%: 44
Countries with credit: 48
Credit with no known country: 3.1%

Every one of the 540 most cited papers was checked for relevance; 91 were left out as not about quantum sensors

The most cited of those left out:

Quantum magnonics: When magnon spintronics meets quantum information science611 citations
Quantum computer based on color centers in diamond348 citations
Telecom-heralded entanglement between multimode solid-state quantum memories283 citations
NetSquid, a NETwork Simulator for QUantum Information using Discrete events270 citations
Loophole-free Bell inequality violation with superconducting circuits218 citations
Towards Real‐World Quantum Networks: A Review213 citations
Microwave Engineering of Programmable X X Z Hamiltonians in Arrays of Rydberg Atoms171 citations
Remote Generation of Magnon Schrödinger Cat State via Magnon-Photon Entanglement170 citations
Quantum Engineering With Hybrid Magnonic Systems and Materials (Invited Paper)158 citations
A 100-pixel photon-number-resolving detector unveiling photon statistics122 citations
Integrated photon-pair sources with nonlinear optics120 citations
Opportunities for Long-Range Magnon-Mediated Entanglement of Spin Qubits via On- and Off-Resonant Coupling103 citations

Definition version 0.5, pilot. It is a plain text file: copy it, change it, rerun it.

Read the method