Budker is a pioneer of optically pumped atomic magnetometry, having developed SERF and other high-sensitivity vapor-cell magnetometers used across fundamental-symmetry tests, the GNOME global magnetometer network searching for exotic physics, and the CASPEr NMR-based search for axion dark matter. This body of work sits alongside, and directly informs, the field of NV-diamond ensemble sensing (DEER, NMR, T1 relaxometry) that has reached pT/sqrt(Hz)-class sensitivities, since Budker's atomic-vapor techniques set many of the benchmark protocols that solid-state spin sensors now aim to match or exceed.

Doyle's group laser-cools and traps polyatomic and diatomic molecules (including CaF and YbOH) using cryogenic buffer-gas sources, applying them to precision tests of fundamental physics such as the electron electric dipole moment (ACME-style eEDM measurement) and to molecule-based quantum information. This precision-measurement approach to fundamental-symmetry tests is a borderline but included case under the quantum-sensing umbrella, given its shared cold-molecule-platform lineage with atomic/vapor sensing and inertial-sensing work.

Flambaum is one of the most cited atomic theorists alive and the intellectual source of a large fraction of the modern precision-AMO new-physics programme. His group computes the atomic and molecular structure factors that convert an experimental frequency shift into a bound on new physics: enhancement factors for electron and nuclear EDMs, atomic parity violation, the sensitivity of clock transitions to variation of the fine-structure constant, and — most relevant to quantum sensing — the response of atomic clocks, magnetometers and comagnetometers to ultralight/axion-like dark matter fields. He proposed much of the theory behind using networks of quantum sensors as dark matter detectors. Positioned against the established body of NV-ensemble quantum sensing work — DEER, nanoscale NMR and T1 relaxometry protocols operating at pT/sqrt(Hz) field sensitivity — his theory is what tells an experimentalist what a pT/sqrt(Hz) magnetometer or a 10^-18 clock actually constrains: without it, a spin-precession measurement is just a number. Theory group; a sensing postdoc would collaborate rather than join.

Lim is an Advanced Research Fellow jointly responsible for the ultracold eEDM experiment at Imperial. He contributed to demonstrating sub-Doppler laser cooling of YbF to 100 μK (PRL 2018), the first demonstration of laser cooling of a heavy polar molecule to ultracold temperatures. He now leads development of the lattice eEDM experiment, developing techniques for loading laser-cooled YbF into a 3D optical lattice for precision eEDM measurements with coherence times far exceeding those of the beam experiment.

Sauer co-leads both YbF eEDM experiments at the Centre for Cold Matter together with Tarbutt and Lim. Key contributions: magnetometry for EDM measurement (design and characterisation of precision magnetic field systems for the ultracold eEDM experiment), precision spectroscopy of heavy polar molecules (YbF, lattice eEDM), and development of spin polarisation/analysis schemes. Co-PI on STFC grants for eEDM and magnetometry. Together the group aims to probe the eEDM at the 10^−30 e·cm level — several orders of magnitude improvement over existing measurements from ACME (Harvard/Yale).

Tarbutt co-leads the Imperial eEDM experiment using YbF molecules and runs an independent molecular array quantum computing/sensing programme. Two parallel eEDM experiments: (1) Ultracold YbF beam — 2D transverse laser cooling producing 200 μK, 2×10^5 molecules/shot, eEDM sensitivity of 1.8×10^−28 e·cm/day (near shot-noise limit); (2) YbF 3D optical lattice — aiming for 10^−30 e·cm/year, requires laser cooling to μK and loading into 3D optical lattice, using novel all-optical spin polarisation and analysis. Also leads UKRI project on testing fundamental physics using arrays of ultracold molecules (CaF in optical tweezers for two-qubit molecular gates). These experiments probe CP-violation and BSM physics at PeV energy scales through precision molecular spectroscopy.