Researchers develop new method to control nanoscale diamond sensors
Diamonds may be a girl’s best friend, but they could also one day help us understand how the brain processes information, thanks to a new sensing technique developed at MIT.A team in MIT’s Quantum Engineering Group has developed a new method to control nanoscale diamond sensors, which are capable of measuring even very weak magnetic fields. The researchers present their work this week in the journal Nature Communications. The new control technique allows the tiny sensors to monitor how these magnetic fields change over time, such as when neurons in the brain transmit electrical signals to each other. It could also enable researchers to more precisely measure the magnetic fields produced by novel materials such as the metamaterials used to make superlenses and “invisibility cloaks.”In 2008 a team of researchers from MIT, Harvard University, and other institutions first revealed that nanoscale defects inside diamonds could be used as magnetic sensors....