Quantum-enhanced biosensing enables earlier detection of bacterial growth
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Quantum Physics arXiv:2512.12057 (quant-ph) [Submitted on 12 Dec 2025] Title:Quantum-enhanced biosensing enables earlier detection of bacterial growth Authors:Rayssa B. de Andrade, Anne Egholm Høgh, Gaetana Spedalieri, Stefano Pirandola, Kirstine Berg-Sørensen, Tobias Gehring, Ulrik L. Andersen View a PDF of the paper titled Quantum-enhanced biosensing enables earlier detection of bacterial growth, by Rayssa B. de Andrade and 6 other authors View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract:Rapid detection of bacterial growth is crucial in clinical, food safety, and environmental contexts, yet conventional optical methods are limited by noise and require hours of incubation. Here, we present the first experimental demonstration of a quantum-enhanced photometric measurement for early bacterial detection using squeezed light. By monitoring the optical absorbance of an Escherichia coli culture with a quantum probe, we achieve a sensitivity beyond the shot-noise limit, enabling identification of growth onset up to 30 minutes earlier than with a classical sensor. The noise reduction is validated through statistical modeling with a truncated Gaussian distribution and hypothesis testing, confirming earlier detection with low false-alarm rates. This work illustrates how quantum resources can improve real-time, non-invasive diagnostics. Our results pave the way for quantum-enhanced biosensors that accelerate detection of microbial growth and other biological processes without increasing photodamage. Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph) Cite as: arXiv:2512.12057 [quant-ph] (or arXiv:2512.12057v1 [quant-ph] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2512.12057 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration) Submission history From: Rayssa Bruzaca De Andrade [view email] [v1] Fri, 12 Dec 2025 21:55:38 UTC (1,228 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View a PDF of the paper titled Quantum-enhanced biosensing enables earlier detection of bacterial growth, by Rayssa B. de Andrade and 6 other authorsView PDFHTML (experimental)TeX Source view license Current browse context: quant-ph new | recent | 2025-12 References & Citations INSPIRE HEP NASA ADSGoogle Scholar Semantic Scholar export BibTeX citation Loading... BibTeX formatted citation × loading... Data provided by: Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv Toggle alphaXiv (What is alphaXiv?) Links to Code Toggle CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers (What is CatalyzeX?) DagsHub Toggle DagsHub (What is DagsHub?) GotitPub Toggle Gotit.pub (What is GotitPub?) Huggingface Toggle Hugging Face (What is Huggingface?) Links to Code Toggle Papers with Code (What is Papers with Code?) ScienceCast Toggle ScienceCast (What is ScienceCast?) Demos Demos Replicate Toggle Replicate (What is Replicate?) Spaces Toggle Hugging Face Spaces (What is Spaces?) Spaces Toggle TXYZ.AI (What is TXYZ.AI?) Related Papers Recommenders and Search Tools Link to Influence Flower Influence Flower (What are Influence Flowers?) Core recommender toggle CORE Recommender (What is CORE?) Author Venue Institution Topic About arXivLabs arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs. Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)