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arXiv:2510.20401 · Physical Review Applied

Robust gigahertz-range ac magnetometry with an ensemble of N − V centers in diamond using concatenated continuous dynamical decoupling

T. Kitamura, Genko T. Genov, Alon Salhov, Yutaka Kobayashi, Shinobu Onoda, Junichi Isoya, Alex Retzker, Fedor Jelezko

Published Jun 25, 2026• 1 citation
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Subpicotesla level magnetometry has been demonstrated using negatively charged nitrogen-vacancy ( N − V ) centers in diamond by increasing the number of spins simultaneously used for sensing in an N − V ensemble. However, such scale-up often introduces spatial inhomogeneities in detuning and control field amplitudes, which degrade sensitivity. Although several techniques have been utilized to overcome these challenges, including pulsed dynamical decoupling or shaped pulses, these are not generally compatible with the current state-of-the-art techniques for GHz-range ac magnetometry with N − V ensembles, which are typically based on Rabi oscillations. In this work, we experimentally demonstrate GHz-range ac magnetometry using a large ensemble of N − V centers under spatially inhomogeneous drive fields by employing concatenated continuous dynamical decoupling, which is designed for robustness against such imperfections. We compare its performance with the conventional direct Rabi method and show that the robust dressed states in our method extend significantly the measuring range to weaker signals in GHz-range ac magnetometry.

DOI
10.1103/8zf5-1zyj

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Subpicotesla level magnetometry has been demonstrated using negatively charged nitrogen-vacancy ( N − V ) centers in diamond by increasing the number of spins simultaneously used for sensing in an N − V ensemble. However, such scale-up often introduces spatial inhomogeneities in detuning and control field amplitudes, which degrade sensitivity. Although several techniques have been utilized to overcome these challenges, including pulsed dynamical decoupling or shaped pulses, these are not generally compatible with the current state-of-the-art techniques for GHz-range ac magnetometry with N − V ensembles, which are typically based on Rabi oscillations. In this work, we experimentally demonstrate GHz-range ac magnetometry using a large ensemble of N − V centers under spatially inhomogeneous drive fields by employing concatenated continuous dynamical decoupling, which is designed for robustness against such imperfections. We compare its performance with the conventional direct Rabi method and show that the robust dressed states in our method extend significantly the measuring range to weaker signals in GHz-range ac magnetometry.
we discuss GHz-range AC magnetometry by applying the CCDD sequence to a large ensemble of NV centers. Under the inhomogeneities in the detuning and the driving field, the direct Rabi method leads to a rapid decay of oscillations for weak signals, thereby limiting the lower bound of the measurable amplitude. Our experimental observation confirms that the microwave dressed states generated by the CCDD enable the measurement of weaker signals. These findings provide important insights into sensitive measurement of weak GHz-range AC magnetic fields under ensemble inhomogeneities.
Quantum sensing with solid-state spins has attracted considerable attention following the development of single quantum systems. In particular, sub-picotesla level magnetometry has been demonstrated using negatively-charged nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond by increasing the number of spins simultaneously employed for sensing. However, scaling up the number of spins inevitably introduces inhomogeneities in detuning and control field amplitudes across the ensemble system, which degrades the achievable sensitivity. Although several techniques, including pulsed dynamical decoupling and shaped pulses, have been studied to overcome such noises, they are not generally compatible with GHz-range AC magnetometry based on Rabi oscillations. This dissertation presents the development of an experimental platform and the demonstration of robust GHz-range AC magnetometry using a large ensemble of NV centers under inhomogeneous fields. Particular emphasis is placed on the effects of control-field amplitude inhomogeneity. To improve the homogeneity of the control field, barrel-shaped microwave forming systems are experimentally characterized, and their performance is compared with that of planar systems. Then, to mitigate detuning noise as well as control-field amplitude noise, concatenated continuous dynamical decoupling (CCDD) is applied to the inhomogeneous ensemble system, and the resulting dynamics are investigated with several initial states prepared with composite pulses. Finally, the CCDD sequence is applied for GHz-range AC magnetometry and compared with the conventional direct Rabi method. The results demonstrate that the robust dressed states generated by CCDD extend the lower bound of measurable amplitudes in GHz-range AC magnetometry.
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 12^{12}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> 500>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 T1T_1T1​ at a small number of applied DD pulses.
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.
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 12^{12}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> 500>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 T1T_1T1​ at a small number of applied DD pulses.