Nitrogen vacancy centres in diamond key to improve MRI

Distinguished Chair in Condensed Matter in the Faculty of Science and IQC associate Amir Yacoby and his team are developing a new technique for nanoscale magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). A professor of condensed matter physics at Harvard University, Yacoby has developed this novel approach, which uses the unique quantum properties of specific defects in diamond.

Specific defects in diamond, known as nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centres are well-behaved quantum systems that can be manipulated, read and positioned within a few nanometers of a sample for imaging purposes. Due to the spin property of the electrons in the defect, NV centre diamonds have the potential to act as ultra-sensitive magnetometers. Yacoby and his team have developed a NV-MRI technique that combines a NV magnetometer with scanning-magnetic-field gradients using an atomic force microscope.

This technique allowed the team to image the three-dimensional magnetic landscape of the surface of a diamond sample with unprecedented subnanometer resolution. This NV-MRI technique has many applications in quantum information, material science and imaging of biological systems.