Abstract: Quantum computation technology is one of the hottest topics in physics for the past decades. It opens up a new way for computing. Mainly, quantum computation is aimed to build quantum information processing system based on quantum technology, which is much faster to solve hard problems than classic computers. A good quantum system is necessary to build a quantum computer. Thanks to its ability in manipulation, quantum spin system has become one of the best candidates for quantum computer. The quantum superposition, entanglement, and measurement show the quantum nature of spin. The demonstration of quantum computer on electronic spin ensemble was realized years ago. However, many quantum effects hide in the ensemble observation. It was only in recent years that some quantum effects have been observed in pure, single and individual quantum systems such as nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond. The electronic spin state of a NV center can be initialized, manipulated and read out at room temperature. Thus it becomes a best candidate for scalable quantum computer. In this paper, a review of quantum computation based on NV centers in diamond was given. Then, some experiments in nanoscale detection and imaging were reviewed. Finally, its future was discussed.

Key words: quantum computation, diamond, nitrogen-vacancy center, electronic spin, optically detected magnetic resonance, nuclear magnetic resonance