As diamonds form a key component in highly secure quantum communications network, scientists at Princeton University approached the GIA to collaborate on diamond research.

The prestigious university “called on GIA’s expertise in gemmological research and the analysis of optical centres to evaluate how to use the unique properties of diamonds to create a highly secure communications network”, the GIA stated, elaborating on the nature of the collaboration.

The results of the research were published in the July 6, 2018 issue of Science magazine. GIA explained that the article examined how colour centres created by replacing two carbon atoms with one silicon atom in the crystal lattice of a synthetic diamond could be used to store and retransmit information in a quantum communications network, that would allow for the transmission of information between physically separated processors.

GIA Research Associate Lorne Loudin, one of several co-authors of the article, helped to accurately determine the distribution of the colour centres in the diamonds examined for the research, “which guided materials engineering efforts to create the desired colours”. This was done using instrumentation and techniques developed at GIA.

“Accurately mapping the colour centers, which occur at low concentrations in uncontrolled samples, was an important aspect of our research,” said lead researcher Nathalie de Leon, Assistant Professor of electrical engineering at Princeton. “GIA’s expertise and specialised equipment for mapping such defects was crucial to the project.”

“GIA’s decades of scientific inquiry into the fundamental characteristics of natural and synthetic diamonds gave us a unique ability to collaborate with Princeton and Professor de Leon,” said Dr. Wuyi Wang, GIA Vice President of Research and Development. “This is another example of how gemmological research can be applied to different areas of scientific inquiry.”