Nanoscale sensor offers insights into stress and strain

This is the claim of a team of researchers in the US whose work provides greater insights into the way pressure alters the physical, chemical and electronic properties of matter.

Valery Levitas - whose lab at Iowa State University specialises in experimental testing and computational modelling of high-pressure sciences - said the new sensing technology could help advance high-pressure studies in chemistry, mechanics, geology and planetary science.

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The development and demonstration of the technology is described in a paper published by Science. The lead author is Norman Yao, an assistant professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley. Iowa State's Mehdi Kamrani, a doctoral student in aerospace engineering, is a co-author along with Levitas, a professor in aerospace engineering.

The paper describes how the researchers fit a series of nanoscale sensors - dubbed nitrogen-vacancy colour centres - into diamonds used to exert high pressures on tiny material samples. Typically, those "diamond anvil" experiments with materials squeezed between two diamonds have allowed researchers to measure pressure and changes in volume.