A new study could influence how scientists design diamond-based quantum technologies, including ultra-precise sensors and future quantum computers.
Scientists have found that at the atomic scale, diamonds can briefly trap heat in unexpected ways. This could influence how scientists design diamond-based quantum technologies, including ultra-precise sensors and future quantum computers.
A team of University of Warwick scientists discovered “hot spots” around atomic defects in diamonds – challenging assumptions about the world’s best heat conductor.“Finding a hot ground state for a molecular-scale defect in diamond was extremely surprising for us,” explained Professor James Lloyd-Hughes, Department of Physics, University of Warwick. “Diamond is the best thermal conductor, so one would expect energy transport to prevent any such effect. However, at the nanoscale some phonons – packets of vibrational energy – hang around near defect, creating a miniature hot environment that pushes on the defect itself.”Scientists studied a specific atomic defect in diamondScientists revealed that they studied a specific atomic defect in diamond where a nitrogen atom sits in place of a carbon atom and bonds to hydrogen – known as the Ns:H-C0 defect. When the researchers excited the defect’s C–H bond with ultrafast infrared laser pulses, they expected the heat to dissipate immediately into the diamond lattice.Instead, advanced spectroscopy revealed a curious effect: the defect briefly entered what scientists call a ‘hot ground state’ – meaning the surrounding crystal was still hot, and the defect was altered. The presence of built-up vibrational energy nearby shifted the defect’s infrared signature to a higher energy, taking a few picoseconds to peak and then decay, according to a press release.“For this study we used multidimensional coherent spectroscopy to study the defect, which allows us to separate the response of the defect produced by light with different energies,” said Dr. Junn Keat, PDRA, Department of Physics, University of Oxford and former PhD student at Warwick.“This is the first time we’ve applied this technique to the study of diamond defects, and the direct observation of hot ground state formation was beyond our expectations. We are very pleased with the results of this novel approach and are excited to see what else we can study with this technique.”The team also explained why diamond fails to remove this energy instantly. The defect releases its energy by generating particular phonons with large energy – the kinds of vibrations that do not travel far. These phonons move slowly and scatter quickly, creating a tiny bubble of heat around the defect before they eventually decay into faster-moving, heat-carrying vibrations.“Momentary local heating matters because defects are tiny, sensitive quantum systems, and even fleeting changes in their environment can affect their stability, precision, and usefulness in quantum technologies,” said Dr. Jiahui Zhao, Department of Physics, University of Warwick.The research team revealed that defects like the nitrogen-vacancy and silicon-vacancy centres in diamond serve as sensitive sensors and building blocks for quantum information processing. Their performance depends on keeping their spin states stable—and these spin states are strongly influenced by vibrations in the surrounding lattice.Diamond-based quantum devicesThe study’s new findings indicate that optical techniques used to control defects may unintentionally generate small, short-lived pockets of heat. These local temperature spikes can subtly disturb the spin states, potentially affecting coherence times and the overall performance of diamond-based quantum devices.Researchers’ work showed that when certain molecular-scale defects in diamond are excited with light, they create tiny, short-lived “hot spots” that momentarily distort the surrounding crystal. These distortions last only a few trillionths of a second but are long enough to affect the behaviour of quantum-relevant defects.Published in Physical Review Letters, the work in investigated ultrafast defect-lattice dynamics in diamond using the Ns:H−C0 defect, an analog of bond-centered hydrogen in semiconductors. Combining synthesis, ultrafast vibrational spectroscopy, and ab initio calculations, researchers’ show that excitation of the defect’s stretch mode leads to the generation of localized phonons and the formation of a hot ground state, where the interatomic potential is transiently modified. “Our results reveal unexpected nonequilibrium phonon effects despite diamond’s exceptionally high thermal conductivity, with implications for quantum defect engineering,” said researchers in the study.
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