Building on DIADEMS’ backgroung
DIAmond Devices Enabled Metrology and Sensing
DIADEMS was an Integrated Project (IP) funded by the European Commission from 2013 to 2017, under the ICT theme of the Seventh Framework Programme.
The work performed by the ASTERIQS members during the DIADEMS project has led to significant progress in NV-based quantum sensing. ASTERIQS will capitalize on these results completed by the contribution of the new partners in the ASTERIQS consortium.
DIADEMS aimed at exploiting the unique physical properties of NV colour centres in ultrapure single-crystal CVD-grown diamond to develop innovative devices with unprecedented performances for ICT applications. NV colour centres are solid-state atom-like structures with spin-dependent optical transitions.
This made them ideal candidates to build high-sensitivity atomic-scale magnetometers.
From a fundamental aspect, the NV- centre in diamond is an excellent candidate to ultimately realise the ideal quantum sensor, namely a two-level system that coherently oscillates between two states and is affected only by a desired signal in the surrounding environment. Significant progress towards this goal has been achieved in DIADEMS, but ASTERIQS will provide new direction in terms of: deterministic implantation of nitrogen, atomically flat diamond surface and NV positioning less than 1 nm from the surface.
From a more industrial perspective, the NV- centre in diamond is very attractive for industrial applications due to its room temperature operation in the solid-state and also due to the exceptional properties in diamond. Numerous established companies worldwide and in Europe are becoming interested in applications of the NV- centre. Moreover, the perspective of generating ground-breaking technology has motivated the launch of numerous start-ups. In particular four start-ups have been launched as direct spin-offs to exploit the outcomes of DIADEMS project on which ASTERIQS is building: NVISION, SQUTEC, QNAMI and QZABRE.
