Engineering Fluorescent Nanodiamonds

Abstract

We have developed a technique to grow fluorescent nanodiamonds under high-pressure and high-temperature conditions by using diamondoid seed molecules and decomposing hydrocarbons into reactive carbon species, such as radicals, to grow nanodiamonds onto these seeds. Furthermore, by using specially designed derivatives of diamondoids as seeds, the process should allow the near-deterministic creation of fluorescent color centers inside the grown nanodiamond. In addition, due to the relatively low growth temperatures, we can grow the diamonds slowly so as to produce nanodiamonds of exceptionally high quality. Such a technology impacts fields such as single spin imaging, bio-labeling and quantum computing. In the future, this technology could be used to engineer single quantum systems, opening the door to a new era of sensing technology on scales smaller than ever before.