Nanoscale Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Magnetic Sensing Using Atomic Defects in Diamond

Abstract

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has revolutionized modern medicine by providing non-invasive, chemically selective, three-dimensional imaging of living organisms. Industrial-scale MRI has the capability to image with millimeter-scale spatial resolution and has the sensitivity to detect as few as \(10^{14}\) nuclear spins. Increasing spatial resolution to the atomic scale and sensitivity to the single-spin level would enable a wide array of applications most notably including imaging molecular structur. However, conventional MRI methods are already highly optimized, and further order-of-magnitude-scale improvements cannot be reasonably expected without employing fundamentally different technologies.