We all know that diamonds have been cherished by mankind for centuries for their purity and unmatchable hardness. Today, however, it’s a diamond defect that has caught the public’s eye.
Cutting edge research into quantum computing has lead scientists to explore a tiny defect found in
diamonds which may help pave the road toward quantum computing. This diamond defect, called a nitrogen-vacancy center.
While a diamond is theoretically formed entirely from carbon, sometimes stray nitrogen atoms may be trapped during the diamond’s formation and become incorporated in the stone’s crystal lattice. When a lone nitrogen atom is trapped alongside a lattice vacancy, this is called a nitrogen-vacancy (N-V) center.
What makes this N-V center so unique is its photoluminescence, or sensitivity to magnetic fields, electric fields, microwave radiation, light, or a combination.
Scientists first began to explore the properties of natural diamonds when they discovered an electron spin (known as intrinsic angular momentum) that occurs due to the NV. These electrons interact with light and microwaves allowing their quantum state to be measured. Then information can be input and output depending on the orientation of their quantum mechanical spins.
Because this defect offers such promise, a great amount of research is being done on the diamond N-V center.
A team of scientists from Harvard have been exploring nanostructured diamond devices that embed the diamond defect with a diamond nanowire in order to realize a quantum network or quantum system. Others have been looking for new, more practical materials.
As it turns out, diamonds are quite expensive, and also are hard to grow and manufacture into chips. Scientists from UC Santa Barbara are trying to identify alternative materials to use for building a quantum computer. They are looking for a similar atomic defect in materials which might offer the same advantages of diamonds without the drawbacks.
David D. Awshalom, UCSB professor of physics and a lead researcher on this project told Science Daily that "We anticipate this work will stimulate additional collaborative activities among theoretical physicists and materials engineers to accelerate progress towards quantum computing based on semiconductors."
