Single Molecule Quantum Sensor Enables Nanoscale Protein Imaging

At the University of Waterloo, researchers have crossed a threshold long imagined but never reached: a single molecule, governed by the strange rules of quantum mechanics, now serves as a sensor capable of perceiving other molecules at the scale of life itself. Where diamond-based quantum sensors have long been the best available instrument for nanoscale imaging, they carry an inherent paradox — they are too large for the smallest things they seek to measure. By replacing the diamond with a single molecule, the Waterloo team has dissolved that paradox, opening a path toward imaging individual