Scientists discover new ways to transmit information using diamonds

A team of researchers from Cambridge University and Saarland University, Germany, have successfully tested a new way of using the imperfections in diamonds to transmit data, which could lead to the development of new super-computing technologies.

The research, co-led by Dr Mete Atatüre, Fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge, and Professor Christoph Becher, Saarland University, Saarbrücken, has been published in the journal Nature Communications, and involves exploiting the atomic defects, known as ‘vacancy centres’, in diamonds. Vacancy centres, which occur around an impurity in a diamond where an element other than a carbon atom has found its way in, can trap electrons which could then be manipulated to transmit data in a revolutionary new way.

The technique involves isolating the impurity of a tiny fragment of diamond and manipulating the “spin” of the electrons trapped in the vacancy centre; information can then be transmitted with photons and registered elsewhere.

Perfect vacancy centres with precise characteristics are difficult to find and most current research uses nitrogen as the impurity. The optical qualities of photons emitted from a nitrogen vacancy centre are, however, unexceptional, and a breakthrough occurred in the new study when the researchers used a silicon vacancy centre instead.  According to Dr Atatüre, “The main advantage of a silicon vacancy centre is that its internal state is transferred to better quality photons, with a cleaner spectrum, when compared with other sources.”

Future research will focus on maximising the potential of silicon vacancy centres, which could potentially lead to huge developments in quantum computing and could even unlock the secrets of biological cells.

Read more about the research on the University of Cambridge website.