Fourier magnetic imaging with nanoscale resolution and compressed sensing speed-up using electronic spins in diamond

Abstract

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.