Sommaire:

Nitrogen-vacancy defects (NV) in diamond are potent sensors for a variety of measures, ranging from magnetic and electric fields to temperature and strain. For sensing applications, a most remarkable property is their atomic size. As the spin is essentially confined to a single diamond lattice site, the NV can be regarded as a point sensor. Using multiple NV defects provides spatial information, as signals can be correlated with the respective defect position. Nanoscale constellations of NV defects offer the potential to reconstruct complex environments, as long as the relative positions of NVs are known and information can be extracted from individual NVs.

Strong magnetic field gradients and superresolution microscopy offer adequate solutions for these tasks. Magnetic gradients on the order of 100 μT/nm, such as the write field of commercial hard disk drive recorders, affect separated spins individually through their Zeeman interaction. Effectively, overlapping spin resonances can be separated and addressed. Moreover, the large bandwidth and high field strengths enable additional degrees of freedom to manipulate single spins [1,2]. Superresolution microscopy, on the other hand, allows to image and localize defects beyond the diffraction limit of optical wavelengths. Here, methods that allow optically detect magnetic resonance of NV spins, such as charge state depletion microscopy [3], are of particular interest to read out information from single NVs.

Combined, these methods enable selective manipulation, read-out, and localization of closely spaced spins and can ultimately offer a unique glimpse in the nanoscale world.

[1] I. Jakobi, et al. Nature Nanotechnology 12, 67-72 (2017)
[2] S. Bodenstedt, et al. Nano Letters 18, 5389-5395 (2018)
[3] K. Y. Han, et al. Nano Letters 10, 3199-3203 (2010)

Pour plus d'informations, merci de contacter Jacques V.