We propose a magnetometer for the precise measurement of AC magnetic fields that uses a Terbium-doped optical fiber with half-waveplates built into it at specified distances. Our scheme uses an open-loop quantum control technique called dynamical decoupling to reduce the noise floor and thus increase the sensitivity. We show that dynamical decoupling is extremely effective in preserving the photon state evolution due to the external AC magnetic field from random birefringence in the fiber, even when accounting for errors in pulse timing. Hence we achieve high sensitivity. For a given inter-waveplate distance, the minimum detectable field is inversely proportional to fiber length, as is the bandwidth of detectable frequencies.
We propose a magnetometer for the precise measurement of AC magnetic fields that uses a Terbium-doped optical fiber with half-waveplates built into it at specified distances. Our scheme uses an open-loop quantum control technique called dynamical decoupling to reduce the noise floor and thus increase the sensitivity. We show that dynamical decoupling is extremely effective in preserving the photon state evolution due to the external AC magnetic field from random birefringence in the fiber, even when accounting for errors in pulse timing. Hence we achieve high sensitivity. For a given inter-waveplate distance, the minimum detectable field is inversely proportional to fiber length, as is the bandwidth of detectable frequencies.
Solid-state qubits hold the promise to achieve an unmatched combination of sensitivity and spatial resolution. To achieve their potential, the qubits need, however, to be shielded from the deleterious effects of the environment. While dynamical decoupling techniques can improve the coherence time, they impose a compromise between sensitivity and the frequency range of the field to be measured. Moreover, the performance of pulse sequences is ultimately limited by control bounds and errors. Here we analyze a versatile alternative based on continuous driving. We find that continuous dynamical decoupling schemes can be used for ac magnetometry, providing similar frequency constraints on the ac field and improved sensitivity for some noise regimes. In addition, the flexibility of phase and amplitude modulation could yield superior robustness to driving errors and a better adaptability to external experimental scenarios.
Abstract Ensembles of nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond are widely used as AC magnetometers. While such measurements are usually performed using standard (XY) dynamical decoupling (DD) protocols at room temperature, we study the sensitivities achieved by utilizing various DD protocols, for measuring magnetic AC fields at frequencies in the 10–250 kHz range, at room temperature and 77 K. By performing measurements on an isotopically pure 12 C sample, we find that the Carr-Purcell–Meiboom-Gill protocol, which is not robust against pulse imperfections, is less efficient for magnetometry than robust XY-based sequences. The concatenation of a standard XY-based protocol may enhance the sensitivities only for measuring high-frequency fields, for which many ( > 500 ) DD pulses are necessary and the robustness against pulse imperfections is critical. Moreover, we show that cooling is effective only for measuring low-frequency fields (∼10 kHz), for which the experiment time approaches T 1 at a small number of applied DD pulses.
Ensembles of nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond are widely used as AC magnetometers. While such measurements are usually performed using standard (XY) dynamical decoupling (DD) protocols at room temperature, we study the sensitivities achieved by utilizing various DD protocols, for measuring magnetic AC fields at frequencies in the 10-250 kHz range, at room temperature and 77 K. By performing measurements on an isotopically pure 12C sample, we find that the Carr-Purcell-Meiboom-Gill (CPMG) protocol, which is not robust against pulse imperfections, is less efficient for magnetometry than robust XY-based sequences. The concatenation of a standard XY-based protocol may enhance the sensitivities only for measuring high-frequency fields, for which many (>500) DD pulses are necessary and the robustness against pulse imperfections is critical. Moreover, we show that cooling is effective only for measuring low-frequency fields (~10 kHz), for which the experiment time apporaches T1 at a small number of applied DD pulses.
Nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond are promising quantum sensors for AC magnetic fields. However, conventional dynamical-decoupling-based magnetometry becomes technically demanding at high frequencies because of the requirement for increasingly short and high-power microwave pulses. This paper describes an AC magnetometry technique based on continuous-wave optically detected magnetic resonance (CW-ODMR) measurements, which enables the detection of signals in the hundred-MHz range. By applying a strong static magnetic field transverse to the NV axis, the energy separation between the relevant electron-spin states was tuned and resonantly coupled with the target radiofrequency (RF) magnetic field, thereby forming RF-dressed states. Unlike pulsed dynamical-decoupling schemes, this approach does not require high-power microwave pulse sequences. The key feature of our method is that the detectable frequency can be tuned by controlling the bias magnetic field strength. Using this methodology, we have experimentally achieved the frequency-tunable detection of AC magnetic fields from 14.4-632 MHz. The sensitivity was 0.558 uT/Hz^(0.5) at 14.4 MHz and 24.4 uT/Hz^(0.5) at 632 MHz. We characterized the field-dependent ODMR contrast and linewidth, and found that their degradation at large transverse fields is a important factor limiting the high-frequency sensitivity. These results establish a simple CW-ODMR approach for widely tunable RF magnetic-field sensing without high-power pulsed spin control.
Ensembles of nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond are widely used as AC magnetometers. While such measurements are usually performed using standard (XY) dynamical decoupling (DD) protocols at room temperature, we study the sensitivities achieved by utilizing various DD protocols, for measuring magnetic AC fields at frequencies in the 10-250 kHz range, at room temperature and 77 K. By performing measurements on an isotopically pure 12C sample, we find that the Carr-Purcell-Meiboom-Gill (CPMG) protocol, which is not robust against pulse imperfections, is less efficient for magnetometry than robust XY-based sequences. The concatenation of a standard XY-based protocol may enhance the sensitivities only for measuring high-frequency fields, for which many (>500) DD pulses are necessary and the robustness against pulse imperfections is critical. Moreover, we show that cooling is effective only for measuring low-frequency fields (~10 kHz), for which the experiment time apporaches T1 at a small number of applied DD pulses.
Magnetometry utilizing a spin qubit in a solid state possesses high sensitivity. In particular, a magnetic sensor with a high spatial resolution can be achieved with the electron-spin states of a nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in the diamond. In this study, we demonstrated that NV quantum sensing based on multiple-pulse decoupling sequences can sensitively measure not only the amplitude but also the phase shift of an alternating-current (AC) magnetic field. In the AC magnetometry based on decoupling sequences, the maximum phase accumulation of the NV spin due to an AC-field can be generally obtained when the π-pulse period in the sequences matches the half time period of the field and the relative phase difference between the sequences and the field is zero. By contrast, the NV quantum sensor acquires no phase accumulation if the relative phase difference is π/2. Thus, this phase-accumulation condition does not have any advantage for the magnetometry. However, we revealed that the nonphase-accumulation condition is available for detecting a very small phase shift of an AC-field from its initial phase. Measurements of the real part and the imaginary part of AC impedance require the amplitude and the phase information of an AC-field, and thus, this finding is expected to provide a guide for realizing sensitive measurement of AC impedance in the micrometer and nanometer scales.