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The Second Quantum Revolution facilitates the engineering of new classes of sensors, communication technologies, and computers with unprecedented capabilities. Supply chains for quantum technologies are emerging, some focused on commercially available components for enabling technologies and/or quantum-technologies research infrastructures, others with already higher technology-readiness levels, near to the market.

In this proceedings we will present a research project financed by Piedmont regional government (Italy) and finalized to the realization and commercialization of functional devices for cellular bio-sensing based on diamond. Partners of the project are: Crisel Instruments, Torino University, Torino Polytechnic, INRIM, Politronica, Bionica Tech, Ulm University Here the main features of the final devices will be briefly summarized. We envisage an active diamond-based cellular substrate that can simultaneously stimulate and detect a variety of signals (chemical, optical, electrical) to and from neuroendocrine cells, in a fully biocompatible environment for the cellular system under test. Such a device can be realized by fully exploiting the peculiar properties of diamond: optical transparency, biocompatibility, chemical inertness, accessibility to a conductive graphite-like phase; properties that will be further explored and tested during the project.

We present an innovative experimental set-up that uses Nitrogen-Vacancy centres in diamonds to measure magnetic fields with the sensitivity of η=68±3nT/Hzat demonstrated (sub)cellular scale. The presented method of magnetic sensing, utilizing a lock-in based ODMR technique for the optical detection of microwave-driven spin resonances induced in NV centers, is characterized by the excellent magnetic sensitivity at such small scale and the full biocompatibility. The cellular scale is obtained using a NV-rich sensing layer of 15 nm thickness along zaxis and a focused laser spot of (10×10)μm2in x-yplane. The biocompatibility derives from an accurate choice of the applied optical power. For this regard, we also report how the magnetic sensitivity changes for different applied laser power and discuss the limits of the sensitivity sustainable with biosystem at such small volume scale. As such, this method offers a whole range of research possibilities for biosciences.

We present the first experimental test that distinguishes between an event-based corpuscular model (EBCM) [H. De Raedt et al.: J. Comput. Theor. Nanosci. 8(2011) 1052] of the interaction of photons with matter and quantum mechanics. The test looks at the interference that results as a single photon passes through a Mach--Zehnder interferometer [H. De Raedt et al.: J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. 74(2005) 16]. The experimental results, obtained with a low-noise single-photon source [G. Brida et al.: Opt. Express 19(2011) 1484], agree with the predictions of standard quantum mechanics with a reduced $\chi^{2}$ of 0.98 and falsify the EBCM with a reduced $\chi^{2}$ of greater than 20.