Key points
- Researchers are transforming cheap industrial-grade diamonds into advanced sensing materials.
- Quantum diamonds can detect signals at the scale of individual molecules.
- This collaboration with Japan’s National Institute for Quantum Science and Technology (QST) supports Australia’s sovereign capability in quantum technologies.
Diamonds have long been coveted for their beauty. Their dazzling colour and clarity make them perfect candidates for luxury jewellery. However, it's their other unique characteristics, including their hardness, thermal conductivity and chemical resistance, which make diamonds suitable for various applications in industry and advanced technologies.
At the quantum scale, carefully engineered diamonds can behave like tiny sensors – able to ‘feel’ magnetic signals from nearby molecules. In simple terms, they can pick up incredibly faint signals that would otherwise be invisible to conventional instruments. This capability could help us detect contaminants in water, identify disease biomarkers, and monitor chemical processes in real time.
A CSIRO team, together with partners from the University of Melbourne and Japan’s National Institute for Quantum Science and Technology (QST), is developing advanced manufacturing methods that take diamond ‘dust’ – tiny particles sourced from cheap industrial processes – and transform it into precision nanodiamonds suitable for quantum technologies.
The team’s goal is to develop a scalable, lower-cost pathway to quantum-grade diamond materials that can be produced locally. This will advance Australia’s critical quantum technologies, strengthen regional innovation capability, and reduce our reliance on unpredictable global supply chains.
What makes a diamond 'quantum'?
Let’s get technical for a moment.
A diamond’s structure is formed by a lattice of carbon atoms. In this crystalline structure each carbon atom is bonded to four others in a tetrahedral arrangement, forming a rigid 3D network. Quantum-grade diamonds contain specific atomic-scale ‘defects’ in this lattice, that allow for the creation of quantum systems. And because they are one of the strongest structures in nature, diamonds are able to host quantum systems at room temperature, without needing to be cooled down to cryogenic temperatures (-273 degrees C) like in other materials.
Shine bright like a diamond
One of the most useful of these ‘defects’ is known as the nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centre. This occurs when one carbon atom is replaced by a nitrogen atom and a neighbouring carbon atom is missing in the lattice.
When we shine green light on an NV centre, it fluoresces, or glows red. The brightness and behaviour of this fluorescent glow changes depending on the surrounding environment, such as magnetic fields, electric fields, temperature or strain. By measuring these changes, scientists can use NV centres to act as a nanoscale sensor.
But making good NV centres, particularly near the diamond surface where they can detect what’s happening outside the crystal, isn’t straightforward.
The process typically involves blasting the diamond with radiation to create vacancies (essentially bumping out some of the carbon atoms), then heating it so those vacancies are adjacent to nitrogen atoms to form NV centres.
For nanodiamonds, the surface matters just as much, because the outer layer has a huge impact on how stable, bright and sensitive the NV centres are.
Why quantum diamonds matter for sensing
This exciting technology is expected to accelerate the deployment of quantum-enabled innovations across sectors including medical diagnostics, environmental monitoring, defence, navigation, and future quantum computing systems.
NV-diamond sensors can detect faint magnetic signals associated with molecules, creating new pathways for identifying chemicals in complex mixtures. This could lead to all sorts of new discoveries, as well as cleaner, safer chemical manufacturing.
In the future of biomedical diagnostics, diamond-based quantum sensors could support faster, more accessible detection of biomarkers, while also helping detect trace contaminants in environmental monitoring, providing faster feedback for remediation and decision-making.
And in the world of defence and national security, compact, room-temperature quantum sensors have potential uses in threat detection, resilient navigation, and field-deployable monitoring systems.
Today, many diamond-based quantum systems rely on scarce and expensive single-crystal diamond materials, which are expensive and difficult to produce. By developing a lower-energy, scalable route to nanodiamonds with sensing-ready NV centres, CSIRO researchers are working to reduce cost barriers and broaden access to diamond quantum sensing.
Building sovereign capability in quantum materials
Quantum technologies are increasingly shaped by access to specialised materials and manufacturing know-how. QST is a global leader in quantum materials and hosts world-class quantum beam facilities that are not available in Australia. This partnership will allow CSIRO researchers to access these specialised capabilities to develop and test new fabrication approaches, while contributing Australia’s strengths in nanomaterials processing, surface chemistry and quantum sensing. The end game is for the team to recreate the capability locally, without the need for large international multi-scale facilities.
Developing an Australian pathway for quantum-grade diamonds – from local starting material through to validated sensing performance and pilot-scale production – supports sovereign capability and represents a major step toward securing Australia’s role in the global quantum economy.
It also helps de-risk supply chains for Australian researchers, industry partners, and government users who need trusted, locally supported technologies. Through strategic international collaboration and domestic capability building, this research is creating new opportunities for Australian science, industry, and manufacturing.
What's next
Over the next phase, the team will focus on improving consistency and performance – including controlling how close NV centres sit to the surface and how the nanodiamond surface is treated for stability and sensing.
Partner testing and characterisation will help refine the manufacturing recipe, while CSIRO works on validating the materials in real-world sensing scenarios.
If scientists can unlock the process of turning diamond dust into high-performance quantum diamonds at scale, Australia can capture more value from local resources while enabling next-generation quantum sensing – from chemical detection to health and environmental applications – backed by trusted, sovereign manufacturing capability.
This work is being advanced through collaboration with Japan’s National Institutes for Quantum Science and Technology (QST) and the University of Melbourne. The partnership combines QST’s world leading quantum beam and irradiation facilities with Australian expertise in nanodiamond processing, surface and quantum sensing.
Backed by funding from the Australian Government’s Global Science and Technology Diplomacy Fund, the project strengthens Australia–Japan science ties while establishing a new, end-to-end capability for producing quantum-grade diamond materials - ultimately positioning Australia as a trusted partner in the global quantum technology supply chain.