IQC’s logo shines bright in a diamond

Thursday, January 11, 2023

Snapshots of IQC

Diamonds are one of the most sought-after and versatile gemstones in the world, with purposes beyond jewelry and drill tips. In quantum research, diamonds are frequently studied because of the presence of special defects called colour centers, which can act as a quantum bit, or qubit, to store information in quantum systems.

Dr. Mohammad Soltani, a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC) is studying ways to implement patterns in diamonds for quantum applications. Recently, his experiments led to a miniscule but recognizable pattern: IQC’s logo, etched into a 2.5 mm square diamond. The smallest logo produced measured just 20 micrometers — about one fourth the width of a single human hair.

“We’re trying to find optimal conditions and design pattern for the diamond and decrease the amount of photons which get reflected internally instead of exiting the diamond to be measured,” says Soltani. “But I also wanted to do something fun with the fabrication techniques we use.”

Great scientific work is often collaborative, and the diamond IQC logo is no exception. Soltani is supervised by Dr. Michal Bajcsy and Dr. Chris Wilson, IQC faculty members and professors in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Supratik Sarkar, Vinodh Muthu, Dr. Behrooz Semnani and Abdolreza Pasharavesh also contributed to this work. This research was supported in part by the Canada First Research Excellence Fund through the TQT program at IQC.