The second quantum technological revolution started around 1980 with the control of single quantum particles and their interaction on an individual basis. These experimental achievements enabled physicists and engineers to utilize long-known quantum features - especially superposition and entanglement of single quantum states - for a whole range of practical applications. We use a publication set of 54,598 papers from the Web of Science published between 1980 and 2018 to investigate the time development of four main subfields of quantum technology in terms of numbers and shares of publication as well as the occurrence of topics and their relation to the 25 top contributing countries. Three successive time periods are distinguished in the analyses by their short doubling times in relation to the whole Web of Science. The periods can be characterized by the publication of pioneering works, the exploration of research topics, and the maturing of quantum technology, respectively. Compared to the US, China has a far over proportional contribution to the worldwide publication output, but not in the segment of highly-cited papers.
翻译:第二次量子技术革命始于1980年左右,对单一量子粒子及其个别相互作用进行了控制,这些实验性成就使物理学家和工程师能够利用长期已知的量子特征,特别是单一量子状态的叠加和缠绕,用于一系列实际应用。我们用1980年至2018年出版的科学网络的54 598篇论文来调查量子技术四个主要子领域在数量和出版份额方面的时间发展,以及主题的发生及其与25个最大贡献国的关系。在分析中连续三个时间段与整个科学网络的短短的翻倍时间相区别。这两个时间段的特点是分别出版开创性作品、研究课题探索和量子技术的成熟。与美国相比,中国对全球出版产出的贡献比例要大得多,但并没有在高引用论文的分部分上。