Jörg Wrachtrup

While working at the Chemnitz University of Technology, he headed a research team that has, for the first time, detected the optical as well as spin signal of a single dopant atom in a solid.

This facilitates quantum control as spin relaxation and coherence times turned out to be exceptionally long, even under ambient conditions.

This discovery is the basis for numerous applications of defects in diamond as single photon source, quantum register and in magnetometry.

His group accomplished spin Hamiltonian engineering to measure electric fields as well as temperature using single defect centers.

Nanoscale quantum sensors also proved to be capable to detects single electron spins as well as measure nuclear magnetic resonance signals with unprecedented sensitivity and spatial resolution.