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

Beyond the sparkle, other properties of diamond have gained increasing attention in the past few decades among chemists and physicists. Color centers-impurities formed by one or a few foreign atoms or vacancies in the diamond lattice-are one reason for this. While pure diamond is transparent, the presence of color centers causes changes in coloration. Color centers introduce additional electronic states in the wide band gap of diamond, giving rise to transitions that absorb and emit light in the visible spectrum.