Abstract The detection of single quantum systems can reveal information that would be averaged out in traditional techniques based on ensemble measurements. The nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond have shown brilliant prospects of performance as quantum bits and atomic sensors under ambient conditions, such as ultra-long coherence time, high fidelity control and readout of the spin state. In particular, the sensitivity of the NV center spin levels to external environmental changes makes it a versatile detector capable of measuring various physical quantities, such as temperature, strain, electric fields and magnetic fields. In this paper, we review recent progress in NV-based quantum metrology, and speculate on its future.
Abstract The detection of single quantum systems can reveal information that would be averaged out in traditional techniques based on ensemble measurements. The nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond have shown brilliant prospects of performance as quantum bits and atomic sensors under ambient conditions, such as ultra-long coherence time, high fidelity control and readout of the spin state. In particular, the sensitivity of the NV center spin levels to external environmental changes makes it a versatile detector capable of measuring various physical quantities, such as temperature, strain, electric fields and magnetic fields. In this paper, we review recent progress in NV-based quantum metrology, and speculate on its future.
Single qubit in solid-state materials recently emerges as a versatile platform for quantum information. Among them, the nitrogen vacancy (NV) centre in diamond has become a powerful tool in quantum sensing for detecting various physics parameters, including electric and magnetic fields, temperature, force, strain, with ultimate precision and resolutions. It has been widely used in different conditions, from samples in ambient to samples in ultra-high pressure and low temperature. It can detect quantum phase transitions as well as neuron activities. Here we give a general review on both the physics of the sensing mechanism and protocols and applications.
The Nitrogen-Vacancy (NV) center is becoming a promising qubit for quantum information processing. The defect has a long coherence time at room temperature and it allows spin state initialized and read out by laser and manipulated by microwave pulses. It has been utilized as a ultra sensitive probe for magnetic fields and remote spins as well. Here, we review the recent progresses in experimental demonstrations based on NV centers. We first introduce our work on implementation of the Deutsch-Jozsa algorithm with a single electronic spin in diamond. Then the quantum nature of the bath around the center spin is revealed and continuous wave dynamical decoupling has been demonstrated. By applying dynamical decoupling, a multi-pass quantum metrology protocol is realized to enhance phase estimation. In the final, we demonstrated NV center can be regarded as a ultra-sensitive sensor spin to implement nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) imaging at nanoscale.
The recent decade has witnessed exciting developments in quantum science and technology. Quantum sensing is a rapidly growing branch, which exploits the fragility of quantum systems to detect small external signals. The extreme control at the single-atom level and the remarkably long coherence time of engineered quantum systems enable unprecedented sensitivity and precision, beating the performance of classical techniques. The nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond is one of the most promising quantum sensors. Its unique advantages have attracted considerable attention, including a long spin coherence time throughout a broad temperature range, nanoscale resolution limited by the sensor-sample distance, convenient optical control of its spin states and remarkably versatile sensing capabilities. Its properties are well studied under a bias magnetic field oriented along its quantization axis. However, its sensing capabilities in the presence of an off-axis magnetic field are much less explored. My research aims to unlock the full potential of NV quantum sensor by developing new sensing modalities under a magnetic field acting perpendicular to the NV axis, and furthermore, integrating them into a scanning probe microscope. In this dissertation, I will report our progress toward building a scanning NV multimodal quantum imaging platform, which will open up exciting opportunities in measuring nanoscale phenomena. The first chapter provides an introduction to the background of quantum sensing with NV centers, followed by a discussion on its basic properties and established sensing techniques. The second and third chapters are dedicated to two experiments performed under a perpendicular magnetic field where traditional NV magnetometry based on the Zeeman effect fails. In the second chapter, I will introduce a new sensing strategy that uses the entanglement between the electron and nuclear spins to restore the magnetic field sensitivity under this unfavored condition. This allows us to sense small changes in the magnetic field angle relative to the NV axis, and to detect anisotropic magnetic noise in the local environment. In the third chapter, I will present our latest development of scanning NV electrometry, where a single NV at the apex of a diamond scanning probe images external alternating (AC) and direct (DC) electric fields with sub-100 nm resolution. In the last chapter, I will discuss our efforts on four experiments that were left unfinished. I will present the results we have achieved, analyze the challenges that we faced and propose potential solutions to overcome them.
One of the biggest challenges to implement quantum protocols and quantum information processing (QIP) is achieving long coherence times, usually requiring systems at ultra-low temperatures. The nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond is a promising alternative to this problem. Due to its spin properties, easy manipulation, and the possibility of doing optical state initialization and readout, it quickly became one of the best solid-state spin systems for QIP at room temperature. Here, we present the characterization of the spin-coherence of an ensemble of NV centers in an engineered sample of ultrapure diamond as a testbed for quantum protocols for quantum metrology.
Quantum sensors encompass a diverse class of devices that exploit quantum coherence to detect weak or nanoscale signals. As their behavior is tied to physical constants, quantum sensors can achieve accuracy, repeatability, and precision approaching fundamental limits [1, 2]. As a result, these sensors have shown utility in a wide range of applications in both science and engineering leading to innovations. Among many solid-state spin systems, nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamonds have attracted considerable attention as a leading platform in many fields of quantum technologies, from quantum sensing to information processing and communication applications. They have superior physical properties, and their quantum coherence is preserved even at room temperature. The energy levels of NV centers are sensitive to magnetic fields, electric fields, strain, and temperature, and the spatial resolution is scalable from nanometers to millimeters. Therefore, diamond quantum sensors are distinctive sensors with multimodality and span scalable application fields. To realize an ideal quantum sensor for applications, the technical challenges in the sensor materials and the quantum control techniques, such as coherent microwave spin manipulation, effective optical spin-state initialization, and readout, have been developed. This chapter briefly explains the sensing principle using NV centers and then introduces sensor systems for biomedical applications, and monitoring of batteries for electric vehicles and internal power devices.
This work investigates the applicability of the nitrogen-vacancy (NV) defect center in diamond for quantum computation and metrology purposes. The NV center is a molecule like defect in the diamond lattice which is optically active and possesses an electron spin in its ground state. The spin can be used as a quantum bit and as a field sensor. The NV center has three major properties enabling individual control of single defects. Its optical properties depend on the spin state, the spin can be polarized optically and the spin state has an exceptionally long lifetime. Single NV centers can be controlled by optical and microwave radiation. Generally, the research on individually controllable quantum systems is not only motivated by quantum computation and communication. With the ongoing miniaturization nowadays electronic and electro-optic devices will soon reach the limit of single quantum building blocks. While in these applications the full complexity of single quantum systems might not be needed, small sensors based on single atoms or molecules might very well take advantage of the susceptibility of quantum coherences to environmental conditions. Major challenges for all approaches towards single quantum system control are the individual addressing, the measurement of the quantum state and the protection of quantum coherence from environmental noise. Today, there is a variety of systems (including the NV center) that allow control on the single quantum level. These are for example single photons, single ions and atoms in traps, single spins in semiconductors or single molecules in solid state systems. Rather mesoscopic examples are superconducting devices, nanomechanical oscillators or surface plasmon polaritons. Regarding the NV center it has been shown that the magnetic moment of its electron spin allows individual sensing and coupling to other surrounding electron and nuclear spins. Especially single nuclear spins were shown to be exceptional quantum memories. In this work small quantum registers of up to 5 spins have been used to test major requirements for a feasible quantum processor. Therefore, mainly artificially created high purity diamond samples with controlled spin and impurity concentration were used. The NV centers were either grown in or created via ion implantation techniques in a controlled fashion. As a first requirement for quantum computation entanglement among up to three spins has been generated and was verified by quantum state tomography. This proves the access of the full Hilbert space. Especially, entanglement among nuclear spins was very long-living. In further experiments this processor was used for first quantum algorithms like super-dense coding and the Deutsch algorithm. In addition, this work demonstrates new methods to initialize nuclear spin qubits into a desired quantum state. This is particularly important as improper initialization inhibits quantum computation. One of these methods is related to dynamic nuclear spin polarization and the other to measurement based state preparation. Nuclear spins in the diamond lattice originate mainly from the C-13 isotope. By artificially altering its content the influence on the NV center spin was investigated. The coherence times of the NV center were increasing inversely with the nuclear spin density. Even increasing nuclear spin density to offer more nuclear spin qubits to an operational quantum register was possible. As an alternative route of scaling up the quantum register pairs of closely spaced NV centers were investigated. For the first time two qubit gates among two NV centers mediated by magnetic dipolar coupling have been realized. Furthermore the sensing ability was demonstrated by measuring the relative distance of the two centers (10 nm) with sub-nm precision. Eventually, this work contains new insight into the electronically excited state of the NV center which allowed a more advanced control of the electron and nuclear spins. A comparably high magnetic field was used to decouple electron and nuclear spins. Finally, this allowed quantum nondemolition measurements on single nuclear spins which manifests in the observation of quantum jumps. The new insight was used to drastically improve the performance of quantum state readout. Summarizing, it was shown that single NV centers and proximal nuclear spins form versatile small quantum registers which can be interconnected with neighboring such NV quantum registers. Although the number of qubits used in this work is still small the experimental results propose a way of how to proceed when building a quantum computer. Regarding quantum metrology, however, the use of such a small register which can sense fields and store and process the results would already outperform a single NV electron spin by orders of magnitude.