The landscape of academic literature in quantum technologies

Abstract

In this study, we investigated the academic literature on quantum technologies (QT) using bibliometric tools. We used a set of 49,823 articles obtained from the Web of Science (WoS) database using a search query constructed through expert opinion. Analysis of this revealed that QT is deeply rooted in physics, and the majority of the articles are published in physics journals. Keyword analysis revealed that the literature could be clustered into three distinct sets, which are (i) quantum communication/cryptography, (ii) quantum computation, and (iii) physical realizations of quantum systems. We performed a burst analysis that showed the emergence and fading away of certain key concepts in the literature. This is followed by co-citation analysis on the “highly cited” articles provided by the WoS, using these we devised a set of core corpus of 34 publications. Comparing the most highly cited articles in this set with respect to the initial set we found that there is a clear difference in most cited subjects. Finally, we performed co-citation analyses on country and organization levels to find the central nodes in the literature. Overall, the analyses of the datasets allowed us to cluster the literature into three distinct sets, construct the core corpus of the academic literature in QT, and to identify the key players on country and organization levels, thus offering insight into the current state of the field. Search queries and access to figures are provided in the appendix.

Auditing the ‘Social’ of Quantum Technologies: A Scoping Review

“…To generate the abstracts for the manifest coding, 61 technical quantum-related terms (most taken from [152]) and 17 non-technical quantum phrases generated by the author were used to obtain the initial abstracts. The technical quantum terms generated 362,728 abstracts and the 17 non-technical phrases generated 2183 abstracts as a starting point (strategy 1a and 1b, Table 1, Figure 1).…”

“…The following quantum-based technical search terms were used for the search strategies (Table 1), reflecting search terms used in a recent literature review [152], and the terms "quantum revolution", "quantum science", "cryptography", "quantum systems" and "quantum cosmology" were chosen based on other literature:…”

Bibliometric Analysis in the Field of Quantum Technology

“…Seskir and Aydinoglu [66] followed an approach similar to the approach of this study. They applied an elaborate search query to publications in the WoS until June 2019, informed by expert knowledge, but different from ours (cf.…”

Quantum games and interactive tools for quantum technologies outreach and education

“…In the last decade, more than 15 publicly supported national initiatives were launched, with several of them having budgets exceeding billion euros, particularly in the UK, 2 the US, 3 the EU, 4 France, 5 Germany, 6 India, 7 and China. 8 Both the number of new publications per year 9 and the number of patents 10 granted on quantum technologies (QT) have been climbing steadily for the last decade, along with the growing number of start-ups and renowned companies getting into the field. Recently, the field has been receiving attention from private funding sources, which some have been referring to as the 'quantum gold rush.'…”