Quantum phenomena are typically observable at length and time scales smaller than those of our everyday experience, often involving individual particles or excitations. The past few decades have seen a revolution in the ability to structure matter at the nanoscale, and experiments at the single particle level have become commonplace. This has opened wide new avenues for exploring and harnessing quantum mechanical effects in condensed matter. These quantum phenomena, in turn, have the potential to revolutionize the way we communicate, compute and probe the nanoscale world. Here, we review developments in key areas of quantum research in light of the nanotechnologies that enable them, with a view to what the future holds. Materials and devices with nanoscale features are used for quantum metrology and sensing, as building blocks for quantum computing, and as sources and detectors for quantum communication. They enable explorations of quantum behaviour and unconventional states in nano- and opto-mechanical systems, low-dimensional systems, molecular devices, nano-plasmonics, quantum electrodynamics, scanning tunnelling microscopy, and more. This rapidly expanding intersection of nanotechnology and quantum science/technology is mutually beneficial to both fields, laying claim to some of the most exciting scientific leaps of the last decade, with more on the horizon.

The fundamental concept of light–matter interaction is routinely realized by coupling the quantized electric field in a cavity to the dipole moment of a real or an artificial atom. A recent proposal^1,2, motivated by the prospect of overcoming the decohering effects of distant charge fluctuations, suggests that introduction of and coupling to an electric quadrupole moment of a single electron can be achieved by confining it in a triple quantum dot. Here, we show an experimental realization of this concept by connecting a superconducting microwave resonator to the middle of the three dots, such that the dipole coupling becomes negligible. We demonstrate strong coupling to the electron quadrupole moment and determine that the coherence of our system is limited by short-range charge noise. Our experiment enables the construction and detection of a complex electronic state of a single electron in a solid-state environment that does not exist as such for a free electron.