Quantum Technology Powered by Diamonds Advances Brain Tumor Surgery

Researchers from the German institutions Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) and the Helmholtz Institute Mainz (HIM), working jointly on a German Federal Ministry of Education and Research-funded project, have developed a quantum sensor that could better ensure safe removal of brain tumors without harming healthy tissue that surround it or areas such as the motor cortex and nerve pathways (see video).

The five-year project—DiaQNOS—kicked off in October, based on BrainQSens, a separate collaborative project in which JGU, medical doctors, and others developed highly sensitive magnetic sensors that enable improved medical diagnostics. The JGU/HIM team’s new quantum sensor is a negatively charged nitrogen vacancy (NV) center—a point defect—in diamond (i.e., nanoscale magnetic field sensors confined in the diamond) that possesses an electronic-level structure, such as an atom, and can be optically initialized.

The diamond powered DiaQNOS quantum sensor project has already allowed the team to improve the magnetic field sensor technology, even allowing them to detect magnetic fields of individual cells, allowing the creation of a magnetic imaging of tumors and surrounding brain tissue (which emit differing magnetic patterns from each other). In a thin layer of diamond, many magnetic field sensors can exist, allowing the creation of a magnetic image of an object. “The hope is that the device will enable [practitioners] to diagnose cancer earlier and to extract cancerous material more precisely. This way, it can improve the outcome of neurosurgery, patient survival rate, and the amount of side effects for the patients.”

Source: Laser Focus World, Justine Murphy
Photo Credit: LFW