What near-future measurement technique improvements will extend our physical knowledge? Inspired by the wiki-article on atom-lasers:

Another application, which might also
  benefit from atom lasers, is atom
  interferometry. In an atom
  interferometer an atomic wave packet
  is coherently split into two wave
  packets that follow different paths
  before recombining. Atom
  interferometers, which can be more
  sensitive than optical
  interferometers, could be used to test
  quantum theory, and have such high
  precision that they may even be able
  to detect changes in space-time

, i would ask you to list more examples of CURRENT measurement techniques getting developed & tested, that will likely drastically enlarge our knowledge and falsification options of physical theories. But not Sci-Fi and Star Trek Physics ;). Mainly i can think of improvements that will allow


*

*more accurate measurement of physical constants/parameters (higher particle energies CERN, better atomic clocks/time definition by Pulsar periods)

*direct measurement of so far only indirect definable physical quantities (e.g. atom laser)

*at all new concepts of (real-time) measurement techniques due to improvements e.g. in computational physics (e.g. quantum computing) or better visualisation of phenomena (adaptive optics in telescopes)


Please name the technique and give short example/link to the physics field profiting from it. Examples i mentioned can also be explained further, as im no expert in these fields
 A: I cannot give a list. But I can indicate one achievement. The Zeilinger group proved in the last years that even complex molecule that can be found in the human body, display a quantum nature, i.e. have a wave-length can we can get interference with them.
This thing in important in a major question asked in the quantum theory: where is the limit between the quantum mechanics and the classical mechanics.
There are many variants of this question. For instance, show an object be BIG for requiring a classical, instead of a quantum mathematical treatment? And HOW BIG.
The Zeilinger group gave an answer: big molecules can also produce interference.
Here is  reference, 
http://xxx.lanl.gov/archive/quant-ph.
Look for the article "The wave nature of biomolecules and fluorofullerenes", quant-ph/0309016 v1.
Anther form of this question is: should an object represent an "open system", i.e. in permanent contact with its environment for deserving a classical treatment?
Well, the answer to this question is longer, and quite ambiguous.
I can indicate some application of atom-lasers. See for instance what writes a group of researchers from Switzerland, Ireland, Denmark, and Germany: "Similar to the principle of an electron microscope, atomic matter waves could be utilized to resolve structures on the
nanometer scale ... In contrast to electrons, atoms exhibit an extremely small de-Broglie wavelength even at low energies."
I hope that it helps,
Sofia
