ABSTRACT Doping of carbon nanoparticles with impurity atoms is central to their application1,2. However, doping has proven elusive for very small carbon nanoparticles because of their

limited availability and a lack of fundamental understanding of impurity stability in such nanostructures3. Here, we show that isolated diamond nanoparticles as small as 1.6 nm, comprising

only ∼400 carbon atoms, are capable of housing stable photoluminescent colour centres, namely the silicon vacancy (SiV)4,5. Surprisingly, fluorescence from SiVs is stable over time, and few

or only single colour centres are found per nanocrystal. We also observe size-dependent SiV emission supported by quantum-chemical simulation of SiV energy levels in small nanodiamonds. Our

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Read our FAQs * Contact customer support SIMILAR CONTENT BEING VIEWED BY OTHERS SIMULTANEOUS LABEL-FREE LIVE IMAGING OF CELL NUCLEUS AND LUMINESCENT NANODIAMONDS Article Open access 17 June

2020 OPTICAL ACTIVATION AND DETECTION OF CHARGE TRANSPORT BETWEEN INDIVIDUAL COLOUR CENTRES IN DIAMOND Article 22 October 2021 SPATIALLY RESOLVED FLUORESCENCE OF CAESIUM LEAD HALIDE

PEROVSKITE SUPERCRYSTALS REVEALS QUASI-ATOMIC BEHAVIOR OF NANOCRYSTALS Article Open access 16 February 2022 REFERENCES * Mochalin, V. N., Shenderova, O., Ho, D. & Gogotsi, Y. The

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spectroscopy. _EPL Eur. Lett._ 83, 46001 (2008). Article  Google Scholar  Download references ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work was supported in part by Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR)

grants nos 11-02-01432, 12-05-00208 and 12-03-00787, a grant from Russian Academy of Science (RAS) programme no. 24, a grant of the President of the Russian Federation for leading

scientific schools (no. 3076.2012.2), an National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant (no. C09-00053), the European Commission, EU FP7 grants Diamond based atomic nanotechnologies (DIAMANT) and

Development of diamond intracellular nanoprobes for oncogen transformation dynamics monitoring in living cells (DINAMO), as well as the European Research Council (ERC) (via project Spin

Quantum Technologies (SQUTEC) Biology and Quantum (BioQ)), the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) (via Sonderforschungsbereiches (SFB) 716) and the Volkswagenstiftung. AUTHOR INFORMATION

AUTHORS AND AFFILIATIONS * General Physics Institute RAS, Vavilov Street 38, Moscow, 119991, Russia Igor I. Vlasov & Vitaly I. Konov * Institute of Physical Chemistry and

Electrochemistry RAS, Leninsky pr. 31, Moscow, 119071, Russia Andrey A. Shiryaev * 3rd Physical Institute and Research Center SCOPE, University of Stuttgart, Pfaffenwaldring 57, Stuttgart,

70550, Germany Torsten Rendler, Steffen Steinert, Sang-Yun Lee, Denis Antonov & Jörg Wrachtrup * Department of Atomic Physics, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Budapest,

H-1111, Budafoki út 8, Hungary Márton Vörös & Adam Gali * Institute for Quantum Optics, University of Ulm, Albert-Einstein-Allee 11, Ulm, 89081, Germany Fedor Jelezko * Vernadsky

Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry RAS, Kosygin Street 19, Moscow, Russia Anatolii V. Fisenko & Lubov F. Semjonova * Central Facility of Electron Microscopy, University

of Ulm, Albert-Einstein-Allee 11, Ulm, 89081, Germany Johannes Biskupek & Ute Kaiser * Laboratoire CRISMAT, UMR 6508 CNRS ENSICAEN, 6 boulevard Marechal Juin, Caen, 14050, France Oleg I.

Lebedev * Institute of Physics, University of Tartu, Riia Street 142, Tartu, 51014, Estonia Ilmo Sildos * Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, 3128 Texas A&M University,

College Station, 77843-3128, Texas, USA Philip. R. Hemmer * Institute for Solid State Physics and Optics, Wigner Research Centre for Physics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, PO Box 49,

Budapest, 1525, Hungary Adam Gali Authors * Igor I. Vlasov View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Andrey A. Shiryaev View author publications

You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Torsten Rendler View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Steffen Steinert View

author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Sang-Yun Lee View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Denis

Antonov View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Márton Vörös View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google

Scholar * Fedor Jelezko View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Anatolii V. Fisenko View author publications You can also search for this

author inPubMed Google Scholar * Lubov F. Semjonova View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Johannes Biskupek View author publications You can

also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Ute Kaiser View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Oleg I. Lebedev View author

publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Ilmo Sildos View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Philip. R.

Hemmer View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Vitaly I. Konov View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google

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inPubMed Google Scholar CONTRIBUTIONS I.V., J.W., P.H. and F.J. designed and coordinated the experiment. I.V., A.A.S., L.F.S., A.V.F., O.I.L., V.I.K. and I.S. prepared and characterized the

sample. U.K. and J.B. carried out the high-resolution electron microscopy. T.R., S.S. and S.Y.L. designed, set up and carried out fluorescence measurements. A.G., D.A. and M.V. carried out

the calculations and analysed the simulation data. I.V., T.R., S.Y.L., A.G., P.H. and J.W. wrote the manuscript. CORRESPONDING AUTHOR Correspondence to Jörg Wrachtrup. ETHICS DECLARATIONS

COMPETING INTERESTS The authors declare no competing financial interests. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION Supplementary Information (PDF 1376 kb) RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS

Reprints and permissions ABOUT THIS ARTICLE CITE THIS ARTICLE Vlasov, I., Shiryaev, A., Rendler, T. _et al._ Molecular-sized fluorescent nanodiamonds. _Nature Nanotech_ 9, 54–58 (2014).

https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2013.255 Download citation * Received: 24 June 2013 * Accepted: 28 October 2013 * Published: 08 December 2013 * Issue Date: January 2014 * DOI:

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