Dr. Anna Ermakova
Anna studied semiconductor physics and nanotechnology at Belarussian State University and achieved a Master's degree there in 2011. She developed ultraviolet diamond-based detectors and studied diamond defects. In 2016 Anna completed her Ph.D. at the Institute for Quantum Optics (Ulm University) under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Fedor Jelezko. In Ulm, she investigated the biological application of fluorescent nanodiamonds for imaging and sensing. Soon after, she moved to Carinthian Tech Research as a researcher, where she focused on modeling and simulations of magnetic systems. In 2018 Anna joined the group of Prof. Dr. Tanja Weil as a senior researcher to continue her work with fluorescent nanodiamonds as quantum sensors. She built a Diamond Quantum Lab at MPI-P. After her maternal leave, Anna continued at MPI-P as a group leader from 2022 under the funding from Carl-Zeiss-Foundation within the program “NEXUS”. Since July 2023, she is an Assistant Professor at the University of Hasselt, Belgium and is an associated member at MPI-P.
Research Interest
Single molecules and proteins determine the processes in living systems or macro-objects. However, there is a very limited number of methods to investigate the nature of single molecules or interactions between them. It is a hard task to find a sensor sensitive to a single electron at room temperature conditions. Our team develop such sensors based on color centers in diamond and nanodiamonds. We are aiming to study weak magnetic fields and temperature in living systems or soft matter. To achieve it we investigate different diamond color centers and find their application limits. Currently, we are focusing on quantum sensors to study metabolic processes in living cells. We want to contribute to the understanding of intracellular temperature and ion transport.