Access through your institution Buy or subscribe A nitrogen vacancy (NV) center is “sort of like a little quasi-molecule that sits in the diamond lattice, and it can trap a certain number of electrons,” explains McCloskey. NVs in diamonds have been exploited as sensors, but typically the magnetic properties of negatively charged NVs were harnessed. “What we are doing is a bit non-standard,” says McCloskey. “We are just exploiting the fact that the color of [the NV’s]...