| Oct 07, 2025 |
Diamond nanosensor spots single electrons and reveals atomic defects in real timeA new diamond-based quantum sensor detects single electrons and maps atomic defects, offering an unprecedented view into how materials behave at the smallest scale.(Nanowerk News) From the microchips in everyday electronics to the quantum technologies on the horizon, progress depends on how well scientists understand the materials they work with. Even tiny irregularities in a crystal’s atomic lattice can disrupt performance. When an atom goes missing in that lattice, it can trap an electron and create electromagnetic noise that interferes with the material’s function. Finding these “charge traps” at the atomic level has long challenged researchers. |
| Now, a team of physicists has built a new type of sensor capable of detecting single electrical charges with remarkable precision. The device relies on a special defect in the crystal structure—two missing atoms combined with a foreign atom—known as a color center because it absorbs and emits light. |
| Scientists have previously used color centers to study material properties, but the new sensor takes that ability further. The team embedded a color center inside a small block of synthetic diamond. By observing minute shifts in the color of light the defect emits, they can spot when an individual electron becomes trapped nearby. |
| The effect is extremely sensitive: a single captured charge creates a visible change in color, while charges even slightly farther away cause almost none. This precision allows researchers to map atomic-scale defects in materials with unprecedented accuracy. The method can also track these changes in real time, repeating measurements every millionth of a second. |
| The results, published in Nature Communications ("Quantum electrometer for time-resolved material science at the atomic lattice scale"), show how the new approach can make previously invisible physical processes measurable. |
| “This device is a new tool for researchers in materials science. It makes physical processes, which we were previously unable to observe, visible and helps us understand them,” says Dr. Gregor Pieplow, who developed the software and methods behind the sensor. “We can now locate the interaction of charges with crystal defects much more precisely and record it much faster than before.” |
| “The potential of the sensor goes way beyond that,” adds Cem Güney Torun, who helped design and build the experiment. “Integrating color centers into microscopic diamond tips will make it possible to analyze many different materials and create a truly atomic, time-resolved, and fast scanning sensor.” |
| The team has filed patent applications for the method and device in both Germany and the United States, describing it as a new tool for materials research in the quantum age. |
| Source: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (Note: Content may be edited for style and length) |
