Nanoscale Magnetometry with Single Spin Qubits in Diamond

Abstract

Many types of magnetic sensing, such as nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy, and magnetic susceptibility measurements, are important tools for understanding the structure and properties of materials ranging from biomolecules to condensed matter systems. However, many of these standard sensing techniques require macroscopic volumes of material, and are not sensitive enough to resolve a single monolayer of a 2D material or a single protein. Thus new nanoscale probes are necessary for understanding the properties of these fundamental and interesting systems. Recently, individual nitrogen vacancy (NV) centers in diamond have been shown to have the necessary sensitivity and resolution to sense these systems.

In this thesis, we develop and demonstrate new techniques to utilize the NV center as a nanoscale probe. We begin with an introduction to the NV center and discuss why and how it can be used as a nanoscale magnetometer. We then use single NV centers to perform nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy on single proteins using quantum logic. Next, we use the NV center to probe monolayer and bulk flakes of a 2D material, hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN), and determine structural information about the system. We then use the NV center to study a 2D layer of electronic spins on the surface of the diamond and gain insight into the dynamics of these spins. Finally, we perform lock-in susceptibility measurements of diamagnetism in graphene.