WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Purdue University researchers have developed patent-pending one-dimensional boron nitride nanotubes (BNNTs) containing spin qubits, or spin defects. The BNNTs are more sensitive in detecting off-axis magnetic fields at high resolution than traditional diamond tips used in scanning probe magnetic-field microscopes.
Tongcang Li, a professor of physics and electrical and computer engineering, leads a team that has developed the BNNTs with optically active spin qubits. He also is on the faculty of the Purdue Quantum Science and Engineering Institute. The team includes Xingyu Gao, Sumukh Vaidya and Saakshi Dikshit, graduate students at Purdue who are co-authors of a paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Communications.
"BNNT spin qubits are more sensitive to detecting off-axis magnetic fields than a diamond nitrogen-vacancy center, which is primarily sensitive to fields that are parallel to its axis, but not perpendicular," Li said. "BNNTs also are more cost-effective and offer more resilience than brittle diamond tips."
BNNT applications include quantum-sensing technology that measures changes in magnetic fields and collects and analyzes data at the atomic level.
"They also have applications in the semiconductor industry and nanoscale MRI, or magnetic resonance imaging," Gao said.
Li disclosed the nanotube spin qubits to the Purdue Innovates Office of Technology Commercialization
