Advanced Quantum Sensing with NanoDiamonds

Diamond color centers have become a widely used platform for quantum technologies, including information processing, sensing and metrology, or photonics. It is due to their unique optical and spin properties, long coherence times, and robustness to the environmental noise. Recently, there has been a growing interest in nanodiamonds (NDs), which are diamond particles with sizes ranging from a few nanometers to a few hundred nanometers. NDs offer several advantageous properties: they are non-toxic, compatible with various environments, their surface is easy to modify, and they can be integrated into microsystems easily. These properties make NDs a promising candidate for future applications in quantum sensing and biomedical imaging, as they address some of the major challenges associated with applying quantum technologies to biological systems.

AQuSeND project aims at the development of novel quantum sensing protocols tailored for use with NDs. Our goal is to enable multimodal sensing capabilities in these nanoscale materials that are already in use with bulk diamonds, and that will now vastly expand possible applications of NDs. To achieve this, the project will combine experimental and theoretical approaches to investigate the properties of such systems, improve NDs material properties and performance of the protocols used, and develop new range of their practical applications.

This project is expected to make a substantial contribution to the advancement of quantum technologies and their applications by harnessing multimodal quantum sensing capabilities of NDs. It represents an ambitious and interdisciplinary endeavor, with the potential for groundbreaking results. The most significant impact is anticipated in the fields of biophysics and medicine, where nanodiamonds can serve as sensors for the precise detection of specific biomolecules and provide detailed information about local nanoscale phenomena. This offers the prospect of a novel and unparalleled medical diagnostic tool.

CVD-grown nanodiamonds with a spherical shape prepared by collaborators from the  Gdańsk University of Technology, Poland. Such diamond particles are candidates for next-generation quantum sensors, with greatly improved spin properties.

CONSORTIUM

• Coordinator: Adam M. Wojciechowski (Jagiellonian University in Krakow, PL)
  
• Fedor Jelezko (Univeristy of Ulm, DE)
• Javier Prior (University of Murcia, ES)