Science: Diamond defects occur when one of the carbon atoms in the crystalline structure is replaced by an atom of another element. Some such defects luminesce when hit by laser light, and the duration of the glow can be used to calculate the temperature of the diamond. Now Estelle Homeyer and Christophe Dujardin of France's University of Lyon and their colleagues have found that defects incorporating nickel atoms produce luminescence that is extremely precise in both time and temperature. When triggered by a laser, the defects are luminescent at two separate wavelengths with extremely short life spans. That makes the luminescence very sensitive to very small temperature fluctuations. The diamonds are useful for measurements from 120 K to 900 K, across distances as short as 5 μm, and over durations as short as 800 ps.
