Quantum mechanics is a required or elective course offered in the standard science and technology education of university, not only for physics students, but also for chemistry and engineering students. During the 100 years after the foundation of quantum mechanics, the way of teaching quantum mechanics has changed along with the progress of quantum science researches. In this article, we review these changes and discuss the perspective of quantum mechanics education.

Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) is a quantum gauge field theory that describes strong interactions, with quarks and gluons as its fundamental degrees of freedom. This article examines the historical background and development of QCD, leading to its establishment as the foundational theory of strong interactions. It also explores the fundamental properties of QCD, such as asymptotic freedom, chiral symmetry breaking, and color confinement. Additionally, the article addresses future challenges and research directions, offering insights into the potential advancements and applications of QCD.

Particle physics has long progressed through high-energy accelerator experiments, leading to the precise and comprehensive framework of the Standard Model. Recently, however, new developments have emerged in the low-energy domain where quantum mechanics had been developed century ago. By finely controlling quantum systems and performing ultra-precise measurements, researchers are now able to detect subtle quantum corrections linked to high-energy phenomena. This approach, known as “low-energy particle physics”, offers access to new physics beyond the reach of accelerators and is advancing rapidly thanks to its small-scale experimental requirements and interdisciplinary collaboration. This article reviews recent progress in fundamental physics enabled by quantum technologies, which are gaining renewed attention a century after the rise of quantum mechanics.

This manuscript traces the Nobel-Prize-winning achievements in the field of “quantum electronics” to explore the field’s origins and its development. Beginning with the invention of masers and lasers, quantum electronics has advanced through the observation and manipulation of internal states of matter using laser fields and the concurrent progress of laser technology itself. Finally, we discuss how the fundamental research within the field contributes to the rapidly advancing quantum technology.

One hundred years have passed after the beginning of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics is now being used in various research fields. Electrical conduction in which wave properties of electrons manifest themselves is called quantum transport, which has been studied intensively theoretically and experimen­tally in the physical system called “mesoscopic”, which is smaller than the bulk and larger than the single atom. In this paper, we review experimental techniques associated with quantum transport phenomena in mesoscopic system. This allows us to remind that quantum transport has developed by high-mobility two-dimensional carrier gas formed in semiconductors and by emergences of quantum devices that owe to advance in nanotechnology. Moreover, we describe that not only semiconductors but also solid-state materials such as graphene and layered materials are now used for studying quantum transport. We explain how “quantum transport” is important for developing quantum devices including quantum computers and for understanding diverse quantum properties in semiconductors and other solid-state materials.

Quantum information science is an interdisciplinary field that merges quantum mechanics with information science, offering new perspectives in physics and aiming to revolutionize information processing. This article reviews its development, examines the current state of quantum computers a century after quantum mechanics’ inception, and explores prospects for the quantum revolution in the next century.

Initial condition of the Universe (particle content, state of gravity, etc) is still one of long-standing mysteries in cosmology. In this article, I review its study through cosmic parity violation search. Theoretically, parity violation appearing in cosmic observables such as the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and galaxy clustering indicates the existence of some axionic field and/or some chiral gravitational interaction beyond general relativity in the inflationary Universe. I discuss recent observational findings and their implications after explaining how to test parity using CMB and galaxy correlators.

We investigate collective excitations in magnetic topological insulators (TIs) and their impact on axion detection. In the three-dimensional TI model with the Hubbard term, the effective action of the amplitude modes is formulated by dynamical susceptibility under the antiferromagnetic state. The amplitude mode of the magnetic fluctuation is identified as “axionic” quasi-particle and its mass is typically eV and it can be suppressed around the phase boundary of the magnetic order.