Persistence and emergence of quantum defects through pressure-induced phase changes
Extreme pressures can transform materials and their properties, but probing these in-situ is made challenging by the small sample volumes and access requirements demanded by diamond anvil cells. Quantum defects offer a route to local measurements under such conditions, yet their sensing performance can be dictated by pressure-induced changes in their own host material. On the other hand, pressure may also be harnessed as a tool to engineer and stabilize new quantum defects with emergent functionalities. Here, we demonstrate both aspects within a unified platform based on optically active spin-pair defects in hexagonal boron nitride (hBN). As robust quantum sensors under pressure, these spin-1/2 systems retain pressure-independent spin resonances up to 20 GPa while maintaining or even enhancing their optical emission, in stark contrast to the spin-1 boron-vacancy centre in the same material. Simultaneously, we show that compression acts as a means of quantum defect engineering: the starting hBN undergoes an irreversible transformation into wurtzite boron nitride (wBN), during which the defect landscape is reconfigured. Spin-pair sensors are seen to persist across this structural transition, however, depending on the starting material we also observe new, highly fluorescent defects in the wBN phase. These results establish spin-pair defects in boron nitride as pressure-resilient quantum sensors while highlighting high pressure itself as a versatile pathway for creating and tuning quantum emitters.