Breakthrough discovery could see diamonds used in data centres and laser manufacturing.<\/p>\n
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There\u2019s an old saying about girls and diamonds. It probably hasn\u2019t aged well. A more appropriate saying in 2026 might be that diamonds are a quantum scientist\u2019s best friend\u2014particularly thanks to a discovery at the University of Calgary.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In early December of 2025, researchers at the University of Calgary\u2019s Quantum Nanophotonics Lab<\/a> published a paper outlining a discovery into the fundamental properties of diamonds and their relation to use in quantum nanophotonics\u2014basically, tiny structures and the physics of how they interact with light.\u00a0<\/p>\n The paper<\/a> outlines how researchers were able to demonstrate what\u2019s known as second-harmonic generation\u2014or the conversion of one colour of light to another through changes to the frequency and length of a lightwave\u2014in diamonds. Prior to this discovery, diamonds were widely believed to be too symmetrical in their crystalline structure to achieve such optical transformation.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cNot only are we kind of breaking the rules by seeing these effects, but we\u2019ve done so in a way where we can control how strongly we are breaking the rules.\u201d<\/p>\n Dr. Paul Barclay, \u201cDiamond is not traditionally a material that would be compatible with the effects we\u2019re seeing in our paper,\u201d Dr. Paul Barclay, a professor with the university\u2019s Department of Physics and Astronomy and lead of the Quantum Nanophotonics Lab, told BetaKit in an interview. \u201cThere is a whole class of applications relating to wavelength conversion that aren\u2019t possible in diamond for reasons that are fundamental and related to the nature of the diamond crystal. So, not only are we kind of breaking the rules by seeing these effects, but we\u2019ve done so in a way where we can control how strongly we are breaking the rules.\u201d<\/p>\n By leveraging tiny defects in the crystal structure of diamonds, the research team was able to circumvent pre-existing limitations, allowing for new diamond uses in the field of quantum nanophotonics.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cDiamond is very good at handling a lot of laser power\u2014you can have a lot of power coming in without breaking material,\u201d said Sigurd Fl\u00e5gan, a postdoctoral scholar with the lab who led the experiments leading up to this discovery.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cSo what we can do with our discovery now is, in principle, create an optical switch, laser, or modulator that can handle a lot more power than is currently achievable,\u201d Fl\u00e5gan added.\u00a0<\/p>\n RELATED: Alberta earmarks $55 million to build tech, science hub at the University of Calgary<\/a><\/p>\n Practical examples, Fl\u00e5gan said, might include use cases in things like data centres, high-powered laser fabrication, and optical processing.\u00a0<\/p>\n While the lab\u2019s findings were published in December, Fl\u00e5gan said research has been ongoing for several years, with researchers first observing the phenomenon three years ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThose experiments took place at the end of 2023 and carried into 2024. However, we didn\u2019t have the final intuition and model of what was happening until the beginning of 2025,\u201d Fl\u00e5gan said.\u00a0<\/p>\n BetaKit\u2019s Prairies reporting is\u00a0funded in part by YEGAF<\/a>, a not-for-profit dedicated to amplifying business stories in Alberta.<\/p>\n Feature image courtesy Unsplash<\/a>. Photo by Bas van den Eijkhof<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Breakthrough discovery could see diamonds used in data centres and laser manufacturing.
There\u2019s an old saying about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399604,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[901,49,2798,48,14684,11423,61],"class_list":["post-399603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-alberta","tag-ca","tag-calgary","tag-canada","tag-deep-tech","tag-prairies","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=399603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399603\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
University of Calgary<\/p>\n