Application of Suspended Nanodiamond in Electron Spin Control Technology Field

Researchers show how to control the nanodiamond "electron spin" when electron and laser suspend in a vacuum tube, which will help to find the applications in quantum information processing, sensors, etc., and will be helpful to the research on the physical basis of quantum mechanics.

Electronics can be considered to have two different spin states - "up" or "down". Researchers are able to detect and control the electron spin resonance, or achieve its change from one state to another state.

"We have showed suspended nanodiamond in a vacuum or in the presence of different gases, and how to make the spin electronic continuously flip," Li Tongzang says, who is an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, physics and astronomy, at Purdue University.

Results are published in the magazine Nature Communications. This research paper has a detailed description of research. The electron spin resonanc has different performance in the presence of helium and oxygen gas, which means that the technology can be used in a new type of sensor, to detect and measure gas. Oxygen sensors are widely used in automobile exhaust and medical apparatus and instruments, such as anesthesia monitoring and breathing machines, oxygen concentration. Nano sensor has a potential improvement compared with the traditional sensors.

"Although it needs more detailed studies to fully understand the phenomenon, but according to our observation, this will be a potential application for oxygen sensing" Li said.

Suspended nano diamond can also be used in the process of quantum information processing. The technology used to study the basic physical principles of quantum mechanics, and the measurement of magnetic field and gravity field, can also be applied to the computer's memory, and search the deviation of Newton's law of gravitation by using test method.

Nano diamond is suspended in a vacuum, which can be precisely controled and make strict measurement for the floating particles. Nano diamond is about 100 nanometers in diameter, which is about the size of a virus, and contains "nitrogen vacancy center". It is the key to the potential practical applications. Nitrogen vacancy center is a defect of an atomic scale in the diamond lattice. The nitrogen atoms replace carbon atoms, and create the space in a neighboring lattice. Researchers can use this function to control the electron spin.