螢光奈米鑽石在生物醫學方面有很大的應用潛力，因為它的生物相容性高、沒有毒性，又沒有光致漂白效應。螢光奈米鑽石的螢光來自於內含的「氮一空缺」缺陷，被黃綠光激發後所產生。此缺陷的主要吸收波長為560nm，在700nm左右處放出遠紅色的螢光，很適合生物顯影之用。在本文中筆者將介紹如何以單分子技來研究螢光奈米鑽石，並討論其未來的應用與發展。

Fluorescent nanodiamond (FND) offers great potential for use as a novel diagnostic agent in biomedicine， because it is biocompatible， non-toxic， and shows no sign of photobleaching. The negatively charged nitrogen-vacancy defect center is an active component of FND. Itabsorbs light strongly at 560 nm and emits fluorescence efficiently from red to the near infrared region， well suited for bioimaging applications. In this article， we summarize the studies of FND by single molecule techniques and discuss its prospective applications in life sciences.