From “Spooky Action” to Scalable Resource: A State-of-the-Field Thematic Review of Quantum Entanglement Science, 2015–2025
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.65166/se20ge78Keywords:
quantum entanglement, Bell nonlocality, no-signalling principle, quantum communication, quantum metrology, quantum networksAbstract
Quantum entanglement has developed from a foundational challenge to quantum mechanics into a central resource in emerging quantum technologies. This structured thematic review synthesizes developments in entanglement science across five domains: conceptual foundations, experimental tests of Bell nonlocality, quantum communication and cryptography, quantum sensing and metrology, and unresolved theoretical and engineering problems. The review emphasizes peer-reviewed literature published from 2015 to 2025 while incorporating essential historical studies that established the Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen problem, Bell’s theorem, and the experimental development of Bell tests. The synthesis shows that loophole-free Bell experiments provide strong empirical evidence against local-realist explanations of quantum correlations, while the no-signalling principle continues to preclude the use of entanglement for faster-than-light communication. Entanglement has also been demonstrated across increasingly diverse physical systems, including photons, trapped ions, solid-state qubits, neutral atoms, quantum memories, and high-energy particle systems. Its technological maturity, however, varies substantially across applications. Quantum-enhanced sensing and metrology have achieved significant experimental progress, whereas large-scale quantum networks and fault-tolerant quantum computing remain constrained by photon loss, decoherence, imperfect quantum memories, finite-resource entanglement distillation, and multipartite complexity. The review concludes that entanglement science is foundationally mature but technologically uneven and frontier-active. It recommends greater methodological integration across physical platforms, sustained research on quantum repeaters and multipartite systems, and more precise public communication distinguishing nonlocal correlation from superluminal information transfer.
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