Diamond Color Centers in Diamonds for Chemical and Biochemical Analysis and Visualization

Abstract

Beyond the sparkle, other properties of diamond havegained increasing attention in the past few decades amongchemists and physicists. Color centers-impurities formed byone or a few foreign atoms or vacancies in the diamondlattice-are one reason for this. While pure diamond istransparent, the presence of color centers causes changes incoloration. Color centers introduce additional electronic statesin the wide band gap of diamond, giving rise to transitions thatabsorb and emit light in the visible spectrum.