Shinobu Onoda

A spinning top, set in motion on a perfect surface, topples from the slightest tremor. Likewise, a quantum bit, created at a defect in a diamond, has its state destroyed by magnetic disorder from impurities and external interference.

Deep underground, iron glows white-hot, and the pressure is so intense that an ordinary instrument would be crushed flat. To peer into this world, physicists built a special microscope based on tiny diamond defects (so-called NV centers).