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arXiv:2404.05000 · Physical Review Applied

Portable maser oscillator at room temperature with reduced magnetic field requirements through spatial orientation

Wern Ng, Yongqiang Wen, Neil McN. Alford, Daan M. Arroo

Published May 27, 2025• 0 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Masers could transform medical sensing and boost qubit readout detection due to their superb low-noise amplification. The negatively charged nitrogen-vacancy diamond maser is the only continuous-wave solid-state maser operable at room temperature; however, it requires cumbersome magnets, which prevent its widespread use. We present a significant size reduction of the diamond maser oscillator using a much lighter electromagnet with a small footprint, reducing the weight from 2000 kg to a more portable 30 kg. We achieve a maximum oscillator output power near − 80 dBm, ten times higher than the first implementation, and discover techniques to reduce the magnetic field strength required for masing by 30 mT through precise manipulation of spin orientation. With the diamond maser now shrunk to a size that can fit on a benchtop, we move continuous-wave room-temperature masers away from the confines of research laboratories and closer to transforming readouts in quantum computing, frequency standards, and quantum-limited medical sensing.

DOI
10.1103/physrevapplied.23.054064

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Masers could transform medical sensing and boost qubit readout detection due to their superb low-noise amplification. The negatively charged nitrogen-vacancy diamond maser is the only continuous-wave solid-state maser operable at room temperature; however, it requires cumbersome magnets, which prevent its widespread use. We present a significant size reduction of the diamond maser oscillator using a much lighter electromagnet with a small footprint, reducing the weight from 2000 kg to a more portable 30 kg. We achieve a maximum oscillator output power near − 80 dBm, ten times higher than the first implementation, and discover techniques to reduce the magnetic field strength required for masing by 30 mT through precise manipulation of spin orientation. With the diamond maser now shrunk to a size that can fit on a benchtop, we move continuous-wave room-temperature masers away from the confines of research laboratories and closer to transforming readouts in quantum computing, frequency standards, and quantum-limited medical sensing.
Masers once represented the state of the art in low-noise microwave amplification technology but eventually became obsolete due to their need for cryogenic cooling. Masers based on solid-state spin systems perform most effectively as amplifiers, since they provide a large density of spins and can, therefore, operate at relatively high powers. While solid-state maser oscillators have been demonstrated at room temperature, continuous-wave amplification in these systems has only ever been realized at cryogenic temperatures. Here, we report on a continuous-wave solid-state maser amplifier operating at room temperature. We achieve this feat using a practical setup that includes an ensemble of nitrogen-vacancy center spins in a diamond crystal, a strong permanent magnet, and a simple laser diode. We describe important amplifier characteristics including gain, bandwidth, compression power, and noise temperature and discuss the prospects of realizing a room-temperature near-quantum-noise-limited amplifier with this system. Finally, we show that in a different mode of operation the spins can be used to reduce the microwave noise in an external circuit to cryogenic levels, all without the requirement for physical cooling. Published by the American Physical Society 2024
We propose a method to create a room-temperature maser operating at approximately 2.9~GHz frequency using an ensemble of negatively charged nitrogen-vacancy electronic spins (NV) in diamond, without requiring population inversion. Our method considers a DC magnetic field of a few milli-Tesla (mT) applied along the perpendicular direction of an ensemble of NV spins aligned along a common axis. This perpendicular magnetic-field creates superposition states of ∣ms=−1⟩|m_{\mathrm{s}}=-1\rangle∣ms​=−1⟩ and ∣ms=+1⟩|m_{\mathrm{s}}=+1\rangle∣ms​=+1⟩ of the NV spin's ground state triplet levels and thereby makes it possible to drive all three transitions in the NV spin ground state. We model the system by including optical pumping of the NV spins, near-resonant driving of two transitions, and coupling the third transition to a near-resonant microwave resonator. Numerical estimates using experimentally realizable parameters show that inversionless masing can be achieved inside the microwave resonator using our method. As an application, we show that the output intensity of an inversionless maser (1.1×10141.1\times10^{14}1.1×1014 spins) can be used for magnetic field sensing with a DC sensitivity on the order of a hundred pT/Hz\sqrt{\mathrm{Hz}}Hz​. Our study opens a new direction in room-temperature diamond NV maser devices for quantum technological applications without the requirement of a strong bias magnetic field, as in conventional NV diamond masers.
Masers—the microwave analog of lasers—are coherent microwave sources that can act as oscillators or quantum-limited amplifiers. Masers have historically required high vacuum and cryogenic temperatures to operate, but recently, masers based on diamond have been demonstrated to operate at room temperature and pressure, opening a route to new applications as ultra-low noise microwave amplifiers. For these new applications to become feasible at a mass scale, it is important to optimize diamond masers by minimizing their size and maximizing the power of signals that can be amplified. Here, we develop and numerically solve an extended rate equation model to present a detailed phenomenology of masing dynamics and determine the optimal properties required for the copper cavity, dielectric resonator, and gain medium in order to develop portable maser devices. We conclude by suggesting how the material parameters of the diamond gain media and dielectric resonators used in diamond masers can be optimized, and how rate equation models could be further developed to incorporate the effects of temperature and nitrogen concentration on spin lifetimes.
The application of masers is limited by its demanding working conditions (high vacuum or low temperature). A room-temperature solid-state maser is highly desirable, but the lifetimes of emitters (electron spins) in solids at room temperature are usually too short (∼ns) for population inversion. Masing from pentacene spins in p-terphenyl crystals, which have a long spin lifetime (∼0.1 ms), has been demonstrated. This maser, however, operates only in the pulsed mode. Here we propose a room-temperature maser based on nitrogen-vacancy centres in diamond, which features the longest known solid-state spin lifetime (∼5 ms) at room temperature, high optical pumping efficiency (∼10(6) s(-1)) and material stability. Our numerical simulation demonstrates that a maser with a coherence time of approximately minutes is feasible under readily accessible conditions (cavity Q-factor ∼5 × 10(4), diamond size ∼3 × 3 × 0.5 mm(3) and pump power <10 W). A room-temperature diamond maser may facilitate a broad range of microwave technologies.
The first solid-state masers to operate at room-temperature and ambient air-pressure were recently demonstrated using optically pumped spin-triplet states as the gain medium. In this Perspective, we briefly review the previous state-of-the-art in cryogenic solid-state masers and then discuss the development of the room-temperature solid-state maser: from the organic pentacene pulsed maser to the diamond nitrogen-vacancy continuous-wave maser. We characterize the operation of these masers as coherent microwave sources and ultra-low noise amplifiers before outlining how they can be adapted to act as model systems in which to explore room-temperature cavity quantum electrodynamics. After discussing challenges facing current embodiments of the room-temperature solid-state maser, we explore how they might be addressed or by-passed altogether through the development of alternative materials and masing mechanisms. Finally, we speculate on how the advent of masers that can operate in ambient conditions might lead to novel applications in metrology and quantum technologies.
Current microwave quantum technologies require the amplification of weak signals with minimal added noise at millikelvin temperatures. To date, this stringent requirement has been met exclusively by superconducting technologies, such as Josephson or kinetic-inductance parametric amplifiers. A fundamentally distinct alternative approach could be offered by masers, the microwave counterpart of lasers, which were predicted as early as the 1950s to achieve quantum-limited noise performance under ideal conditions. However, their dependence on cryogenic operation historically limited further advancement. Here we demonstrate the first-ever non-superconducting, near-quantum-limited maser amplifier operating at millikelvin temperatures utilising nitrogen impurity spins (P1 centres) in diamond. Population inversion is achieved via microwave pumping, exploiting a four-spin cross-relaxation mechanism. We realise a maximum power gain exceeding 30 dB, an added noise of approximately 2.55 quanta above the standard quantum limit, and a maximum 1 dB output compression point of -63 dBm at 6.595 GHz. The ability to operate in strong static magnetic fields of arbitrary orientation may offer a complementary, non-superconducting route for applications such as semiconducting spin-qubit readout, magnetic-resonance spectroscopy, and dark-matter axion searches.