Engineering the Quantum Future: Impact of Electrical Engineering in the Field of Quantum Mechanics

Electrical Engineering (EE) and Quantum Mechanics (QM) have gone hand in hand for many years, with each field helping the other advance. Many developments in EE, like transistors, lasers, and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), rely on quantum mechanical effects for their fundamental operation. Similarly, development in EE enabled progress in experimental quantum physics. With devices and circuits shrinking to the nanoscale level, engineers have had to come across quantum phenomena directly. For example, at the 7-5 nm transistor technology nodes, the behavior of the transistor is significantly affected by quantum tunneling and energy quantization. Even though these effects were once negligible at the classical circuits design scale, they have now become increasingly difficult to manage as feature sizes approach atomic scales. Therefore, EE gave rise to the emerging field of quantum engineering by providing tools and techniques to harness, control, and measure quantum systems. This paper reviews the literature on how EE methods have impacted quantum mechanics’ research.