Quantum interpolation makes viewing Biomolecules at room temp. possible without freezing. This technique will enable more powerful sensors than we have ever had before.

In the latest issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from MIT and Singapore University of Technology and Design are describing a new technique that may finally give life scientists a detailed view into many of the biomolecules they work with. These days, X-ray diffraction is typically used to see the structure of a molecule. But this requires crystallization, a process not all molecules, including many proteins, are unwilling to undergo.

The technology uses tiny diamond crystals that have a nitrogen atom in place of a single carbon atom. These so-called “nitrogen vacancy centers” make the crystals react to minute fluctuations of magnetic and electric fields surrounding them. They’re so sensitive that the spins of individual atoms of a nearby molecule affect them enough to be detected by an external device.

Using nitrogen vacancy centers is not new, but previously the resolution that was achieved has not been sufficient to accurately image most molecules. That is because microwaves were typically used to detect the state of the diamond crystals, and the way they’ve been used has led to limited results. The latest research relies on “quantum interpolation,” which in simplified terms means taking multiple readings of the magnetic field around the diamond crystals using different microwave pulses at the same time.

Nice information on Quantum open systems via the existence of a functional relationship between a rigorous measure of quantum non–Markovian ity and the CCA localization. Sharing with my other QC R&D friends.

As discovered by P. W. Anderson, excitations do not propagate freely in a disordered lattice, but, due to destructive interference, they localise. As a consequence, when an atom interacts with a disordered lattice, one indeed observes a non-trivial excitation exchange between atom and lattice. Such non-trivial atomic dynamics will in general be characterised also by a non-trivial quantum information backflow, a clear signature of non–Markovian dynamics. To investigate the above scenario, we consider a quantum emitter, or atom, weakly coupled to a uniform coupled-cavity array (CCA). If initially excited, in the absence of disorder, the emitter undergoes a Markovian spontaneous emission by releasing all its excitation into the CCA (initially in its vacuum state). By introducing static disorder in the CCA the field normal modes become Anderson-localized, giving rise to a non–Markovian atomic dynamics. We show the existence of a functional relationship between a rigorous measure of quantum non–Markovian ity and the CCA localization. We furthermore show that the average non–Markovian ity of the atomic dynamics is well-described by a phenomenological model in which the atom is coupled, at the same time, to a single mode and to a standard — Markovian — dissipative bath.