"This is a device that we have created ourselves to determine the voltage in diamond plates. When artificial diamonds are grown, mechanical stress is created in them. They cannot grow perfectly, that is, the crystal lattice can bend, twist, and this has a very negative effect on the result. We can use this installation to see how much the crystal lattice is deformed," Makarov said.
In Arkhangelsk, in 2024, the construction of an enterprise for the cultivation of artificial diamonds will be completed. Monocrystalline plates with unique sensory properties will be created here. Within the framework of the project, a laboratory has been opened in SAFU, where monocrystalline diamond plates with various defects are studied, including the so-called envi-centers (NV-centers, nitrogen-vacancy, or nitrogen-substituted centers). In this case, a nitrogen atom is introduced into the crystal structure and a carbon atom is knocked out, a violation of the structure of the diamond crystal lattice occurs, the resulting vacancy binds to the nitrogen atom.
"If other atoms are introduced into the diamond structure, then the properties of this diamond begin to change. If nitrogen and a vacancy are introduced there and certain procedures are carried out, then they find each other and form a new system called an envi-center. As it turned out, this envi-center has unique quantum properties," the agency interlocutor noted.
The base for the Diamond quantum computer with envi-centers can be used as a quantum magnetometer. This is a fundamentally new way of navigation, not connected with space or with radar stations, but only with the Earth's magnetic field.
Another promising area is the use of envi-centers to create a quantum computer. This is a device that will work in
billions of times faster than the most powerful modern computers. "They are already being created, but they are still incomplete," Makarov explained. - These envi-centers can be quantum qubits, so-called units of information. In the future, it is possible to create a quantum computer based on these envi-centers."
A qubit is the smallest unit of information in a quantum computer (analogous to a bit in a conventional computer) used for quantum computing. A qubit can be based on an envi-center, which is very promising. "Because the envi-center retains its condition even at room temperatures and even higher.
Everything else collapses at room temperatures, all quantum entangled particles, they just collapse, they don't exist," the scientist said.
Currently, the quantum computers being created are cooled to almost absolute zero. It's even colder than in outer space. Modern
A quantum computer is a huge room containing a very complex device. "That's what we want to work with. Two promising areas for all this to be created, we need to get diamond plates with envi-centers and determine the concentration of envi-centers, how they are oriented, the quality of envi-centers," he added.
The number of envi-centers in a diamond plate should be different for different purposes. Their number in the plate millimeter by millimeter is estimated in billions.
The laboratory determines which atoms are in the structure of diamonds in addition to carbon and their concentration. Another device - a profilometer - allows you to determine the roughness of the diamond surface. "That is, it should be smooth with an accuracy of up to five nanometers, five nanometers are just tens of atoms, how smooth it should be," Makarov said.