Person:

Belthangady, Chinmay

Optically-detected magnetic resonance using Nitrogen Vacancy (NV) color centres in diamond is a leading modality for nanoscale magnetic field imaging,1-3 as it pro-vides single electron spin sensitivity,4 three-dimensional resolution better than 1 nm,5 and applicability to a wide range of physical6-8 and biological9 samples under ambient conditions. To date, however, NV-diamond magnetic imaging has been performed using “real space” techniques, which are either limited by optical diffrac-tion to ≈250 nm resolution10 or require slow, point-by-point scanning for nanoscale resolution, e.g., using an atomic force microscope,11 magnetic tip,5 or super-resolution optical imaging.12 Here we introduce an alternative technique of Fourier magnetic imaging using NV-diamond. In analogy with conventional magnetic reso-nance imaging (MRI), we employ pulsed magnetic field gradients to phase-encode spatial information on NV electronic spins in wavenumber or “k-space”13 followed by a fast Fourier transform to yield real-space images with nanoscale resolution, wide field-of-view (FOV), and compressed sensing speed-up.

For precision coherent measurements with ensembles of quantum spins the relevant Figure-of Merit (FOM) is the product of polarized spin density and coherence lifetime, which is generally limited by the dynamics of the spin environment. Here, we apply a coherent spectroscopic technique to characterize the dynamics of the composite solid-state spin environment of Nitrogen-Vacancy (NV) centers in room temperature diamond. For samples of very different NV densities and impurity spin concentrations, we show that NV FOM values can be almost an order of magnitude larger than previously achieved in other room-temperature solid-state spin systems, and within an order of magnitude of the state-of-the-art atomic system. We also identify a new mechanism for suppression of electronic spin bath dynamics in the presence of a nuclear spin bath of sufficient concentration. This suppression could inform efforts to further increase the FOM for solid-state spin ensemble metrology and collective quantum information processing.

We demonstrate preferential orientation of nitrogen-vacancy (NV) color centers along two of four possible crystallographic axes in diamonds grown by chemical vapor deposition on the {100} face. We identify the relevant growth regime and present a possible explanation of this effect. We show that preferential orientation provides increased optical readout contrast for NV multispin measurements, including enhanced ac magnetic-field sensitivity, thus providing an important step towards high-fidelity multispin-qubit quantum information processing, sensing, and metrology.

We use multipulse dynamical decoupling to increase the coherence lifetime (T2) of large numbers of nitrogen-vacancy (NV) electronic spins in room temperature diamond, thus enabling scalable applications of multispin quantum information processing and metrology. We realize an order-of-magnitude extension of the NV multispin T2 in three diamond samples with widely differing spin impurity environments. In particular, for samples with nitrogen impurity concentration ≲1 ppm, we extend T2 to >2 ms, comparable to the longest coherence time reported for single NV centers, and demonstrate a tenfold enhancement in NV multispin sensing of ac magnetic fields.

Multi-qubit systems are crucial for the advancement and application of quantum science. Such systems require maintaining long coherence times while increasing the number of qubits available for coherent manipulation. For solid-state spin systems, qubit coherence is closely related to fundamental questions of many-body spin dynamics. Here we apply a coherent spectroscopic technique to characterize the dynamics of the composite solid-state spin environment of nitrogen-vacancy colour centres in room temperature diamond. We identify a possible new mechanism in diamond for suppression of electronic spin-bath dynamics in the presence of a nuclear spin bath of sufficient concentration. This suppression enhances the efficacy of dynamical decoupling techniques, resulting in increased coherence times for multi-spin-qubit systems, thus paving the way for applications in quantum information, sensing and metrology.

A common limitation of experiments using color centers in diamond is the poor photon collection efficiency of microscope objectives due to refraction at the diamond interface. We present a simple and effective technique to detect a large fraction of photons emitted by color centers within a planar diamond sample by detecting light that is guided to the edges of the diamond via total internal reflection. We describe a prototype device using this “side-collection” technique, which provides a photon collection efficiency ≈47% and a photon detection efficiency ≈39%. We apply the enhanced signal-to-noise ratio gained from side collection to ac magnetometry using ensembles of nitrogen-vacancy (NV) color centers, and demonstrate an ac magnetic field sensitivity ≈100pT/Hz‾‾‾√, limited by added noise in the prototype side-collection device. Technical optimization should allow significant further improvements in photon collection and detection efficiency as well as subpicotesla NV-diamond magnetic field sensitivity using the side-collection technique.

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) provide non-invasive information about multiple nuclear species in bulk matter, with wide-ranging applications from basic physics and chemistry to biomedical imaging1. However, the spatial resolution of conventional NMR and MRI is limited2 to several micrometres even at large magnetic fields (>1 T), which is inadequate for many frontier scientific applications such as single-molecule NMR spectroscopy and in vivo MRI of individual biological cells. A promising approach for nanoscale NMR and MRI exploits optical measurements of nitrogen–vacancy (NV) colour centres in diamond, which provide a combination of magnetic field sensitivity and nanoscale spatial resolution unmatched by any existing technology, while operating under ambient conditions in a robust, solid-state system3, 4, 5. Recently, single, shallow NV centres were used to demonstrate NMR of nanoscale ensembles of proton spins, consisting of a statistical polarization equivalent to ∼100–1,000 spins in uniform samples covering the surface of a bulk diamond chip6, 7. Here, we realize nanoscale NMR spectroscopy and MRI of multiple nuclear species (1H, 19F, 31P) in non-uniform (spatially structured) samples under ambient conditions and at moderate magnetic fields (∼20 mT) using two complementary sensor modalities.

Under ambient conditions, spin impurities in solid-state systems are found in thermally mixed states and are optically “dark”; i.e., the spin states cannot be optically controlled. Nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond are an exception in that the electronic spin states are “bright”; i.e., they can be polarized by optical pumping, coherently manipulated with spin-resonance techniques, and read out optically, all at room temperature. Here we demonstrate a scheme to resonantly couple bright NV electronic spins to dark substitutional-nitrogen (P1) electronic spins by dressing their spin states with oscillating magnetic fields. This resonant coupling mechanism can be used to transfer spin polarization from NV spins to nearby dark spins and could be used to cool a mesoscopic bath of dark spins to near-zero temperature, thus providing a resource for quantum information and sensing, and aiding studies of quantum effects in many-body spin systems.

The nitrogen vacancy centre in diamond is a leading platform for nanoscale sensing and imaging, as well as quantum information processing in the solid state. To date, individual control of two nitrogen vacancy electronic spins at the nanoscale has been demonstrated. However, a key challenge is to scale up such control to arrays of nitrogen vacancy spins. Here, we apply nanoscale magnetic resonance frequency encoding to realize site-selective addressing and coherent control of a four-site array of nitrogen vacancy spins. Sites in the array are separated by 100 nm, with each site containing multiple nitrogen vacancies separated by ~15 nm. Microcoils fabricated on the diamond chip provide electrically tuneable magnetic field gradients ~0.1 G/nm. Tailored application of gradient fields and resonant microwaves allow site-selective nitrogen vacancy spin manipulation and sensing applications, including Rabi oscillations, imaging, and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy with nanoscale resolution. Microcoil-based magnetic resonance of solid-state spins provides a practical platform for quantum-assisted sensing, quantum information processing, and the study of nanoscale spin networks.