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arXiv:2004.02886 · Physical Review Applied

Optically Enhanced Electric Field Sensing Using Nitrogen-Vacancy Ensembles

Maxwell Block, Bryce Kobrin, Andrey Jarmola, Satcher Hsieh, Chong Zu, Nataniel L. Figueroa, Víctor M. Acosta, Joaquín Minguzzi, Jeronimo R. Maze, Dmitry Budker, Norman Y. Yao

Published Aug 13, 2021• 62 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Ensembles of nitrogen-vacancy (N-$V$) centers in diamond show promise as versatile electric field sensors, but are limited by noise from an inhomogeneous internal charge environment. Here researchers develop a scheme for optically enhanced electrometry that improves N-$V$ sensitivity to external electric fields, especially at low temperatures. They also implement a complementary method for experimentally extracting the color center's excited-state electric field susceptibilities, and they provide a simple scaling theory for optimizing the density of N-$V$ defects in electrometry applications.

DOI
10.1103/physrevapplied.16.024024

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The nitrogen-vacancy (NV) color center in diamond is a promising solid-state quantum system at room temperature. However, its sensitivity is limited by its low fluorescence collection efficiency, and its coherence time is limited by spin interference of impurity electrons around the NV color center. Here, we innovatively fabricated a one-dimensional photonic crystal on the surface of diamond, which greatly improved the fluorescence intensity of the NV color centers and increased the sensitivity of NV ensembles by a factor of 2.92. In addition, the laser reflected by the photonic crystal excites impurity electrons around the NV color centers, improving the electric field environment around the NV color centers, which exponentially prolongs the dephasing time (from 209 to 841 ns), opening avenues for NV color-center ensemble sensors.
Characterizing the local internal environment surrounding solid-state spin defects is crucial to harnessing them as nanoscale sensors of external fields. This is especially germane to the case of defect ensembles which can exhibit a complex interplay between interactions, internal fields, and lattice strain. Working with the nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond, we demonstrate that local electric fields dominate the magnetic resonance behavior of NV ensembles at a low magnetic field. We introduce a simple microscopic model that quantitatively captures the observed spectra for samples with NV concentrations spanning more than two orders of magnitude. Motivated by this understanding, we propose and implement a novel method for the nanoscale localization of individual charges within the diamond lattice; our approach relies upon the fact that the charge induces a NV dark state which depends on the electric field orientation.
The physical properties of diamond crystals, such as color or electrical conductivity, can be controlled via impurities. In particular, when doped with nitrogen, optically active nitrogen-vacancy centers (NV), can be induced. The center is an outstanding quantum spin system that enables, under ambient conditions, optical initialization, readout, and coherent microwave control with applications in sensing and quantum information. Under optical and radio frequency excitation, the Zeeman splitting of the degenerate states allows the quantitative measurement of external magnetic fields with high sensitivity. This study provides a pedagogical introduction to the properties of the NV centers as well as a step-by-step process to develop and test a simple magnetic quantum sensor based on color centers with significant potential for the development of highly compact multisensor systems.
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We present a design to increase the amount of collected fluorescence emitted by nitrogen-vacancy color centers in diamond used for quantum-sensing. An improvement was measured in collected fluorescence when comparing oppositely faced emitting surfaces by a factor of 3.8(1). This matches ray-tracing simulation results. This design therefore improves on the shot noise limited sensitivity in optical readout-based measurements of, for instance, magnetic and electric fields, pressure, temperature, and rotations.
As promising quantum sensors, nitrogen-vacancy (N-VVV) centers in diamond have been widely used in frontier studies in condensed-matter physics, material science, and life sciences. In practical applications, weak laser excitation is favorable as it reduces the side effects of laser irradiation, such as phototoxicity and heating. Here we report a combined theoretical and experimental study of (near) zero-field optically detected magnetic resonance (ODMR) of N-VVV-center ensembles under weak 532-nm laser excitation. In this region, both the width and splitting of the ODMR spectra decrease with increasing laser power. This power dependence is reproduced with a model that accounts for the laser-induced charge neutralization of $\mathrm{N}\text{\ensuremath{-}}{V}^{\ensuremath{-}}$--N+{\mathrm{N}}^{+}N+ pairs, which alters the local electric field environment. These results are useful for the understanding and development of N-VVV-based quantum sensing in light-sensitive applications.