Putting a new spin on things
In the next part of our future of chemistry series we look at how diamond defects could transform everything from NMR to fighting cancer
Nitrogen-vacancy centres are basically just defects in diamonds but they have gone from a curiosity to potential components for a quantum computer and on to invaluable tools to analyse single molecules and living cells. These oddities are now being used as sensors for everything from magnetic field, electric field, temperature, pH, force and pressure. While nitrogen-vacancy centres have done a lot for chemistry in recent decades those in the field think that there’s still a lot more they could offer.