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Applied Physics Letters

Nitrogen-vacancy centers with high intrinsic effective fields as probes for electric noise

Changfeng Weng, Jiaxin Zhao, Mengyuan Cai, Yuanjie Yang, Shengran Lin, Wei Zhu, Liren Lou, Guanzhong Wang

Published Apr 21, 2025• 2 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Characterizing electric field noise in diamond is crucial for utilizing nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers as probes and qubits. However, NV centers under axial magnetic fields are sensitive to magnetic fields and thus are limited in their ability to characterize electric fields directly. In this study, we engineered NV centers exhibiting strong intrinsic effective electric fields through ion implantation into CVD-grown diamond. We selected seven NV centers with splittings in the range of 18–66 MHz as the focus of our research. By virtue of the suppression effect of the strong effective field on the magnetic field, the energy level shift caused by the magnetic field was reduced by two orders of magnitude. Combining spectral decomposition techniques, we extracted the electric noise spectrum in the low-frequency range from the environmental noise. Our results indicate that the near-surface electrical noise of the diamond deviates from the 1/f noise model, and two characteristic correlation times were observed within the measured frequency range (1–10 MHz).

DOI
10.1063/5.0234094

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Characterizing electric field noise in diamond is crucial for utilizing nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers as probes and qubits. However, NV centers under axial magnetic fields are sensitive to magnetic fields and thus are limited in their ability to characterize electric fields directly. In this study, we engineered NV centers exhibiting strong intrinsic effective electric fields through ion implantation into CVD-grown diamond. We selected seven NV centers with splittings in the range of 18–66 MHz as the focus of our research. By virtue of the suppression effect of the strong effective field on the magnetic field, the energy level shift caused by the magnetic field was reduced by two orders of magnitude. Combining spectral decomposition techniques, we extracted the electric noise spectrum in the low-frequency range from the environmental noise. Our results indicate that the near-surface electrical noise of the diamond deviates from the 1/f noise model, and two characteristic correlation times were observed within the measured frequency range (1–10 MHz).
Diamond nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers are widely studied for quantum sensing in multiple physical fields due to their long coherence time and room-temperature optical readout. However, accurately decoupling and extracting signals for individual fields from fluorescence remains a major challenge. In this work, by establishing the spatial configuration between the four axes of the NV center and the directions of the externally applied electric and magnetic fields, the resonance frequency shifts of two pairs in the ODMR spectrum are exclusively induced by the electric field, whereas those of the other two pairs are exclusively induced by the magnetic field. Consequently, effective decoupling and readout of the electric field signal are realized. The experiments measure electric fields from 0 to 20 kV/cm in the diamond sample, revealing a linear relationship between the resonance frequency shift and the applied electric field, with coefficients 0.1713MHz/(kV/cm) and 0.1660MHz/(kV/cm) matching the NV center’s linear Stark effect, laying the foundation for subsequent research on electric field measurement.
The Nitrogen-Vacancy (NV) color center is a defect of diamond which behaves as an artificial atom hosted in a solid-state matrix. Due to its electron spin properties which can be read-out and manipulated as an elementary quantum system, the NV center has found a wide panel of applications as a qubit for quantum information and as a magnetic field sensor. However these applications require to control the properties of the NV centers and their localization. This doctoral thesis investigates methods allowing us to tailor the properties of NV centers by combining techniques for the implantation of nitrogen atoms and the plasma-assisted (CVD) synthesis of diamond.The manuscript is divided into six chapters. The first chapter summarizes the properties of the NV center which will set our objectives for the NV engineering. The second chapter will describe how arrays of NV centers can be created using Focused Ion Beam implantation. The results open a wide range of applications for the targeted creation of NV centers in diamond structures such as photonic crystals and tips. However the low kinetic energy which is required for achieving implantation within a spot of 10-nm diameter leads to shallow defects which properties are strongly affected by the sample surface. The third chapter investigates how the overgrowth of a diamond layer over implanted NV centers can remove the detrimental influence of the surface. The fourth and fifth chapters describe effective methods for NV center fabrication through the control of the CVD growth conditions of the hosting crystal. Thin layers with high NV doping can be grown and almost perfect control of the orientation of the NV axis can be achieved. With the goal to optimize the spin coherence properties, the sixth chapter investigates how the electron spin of the NV center can be protected from decoherence effects induced by magnetic noise due to the unpolarized spins in the diamond lattice.
Detection of diamond surface electric-field noise is of importance for studying the coherence properties of shallow nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers. Using the double quantum relaxation method, we demonstrated that the noise has a power-law frequency dependence, and it increases slowly from 295 K to 420 K but reduces quickly at higher temperatures. As the Dutta-Horn model described, the noise is created by ensembles of two-level systems with activation energies ranging from 0.3 eV to 0.6 eV. For diamond surface passivation, we found that the solid covering material (PMMA) outperforms the liquid one (glycerol) in reducing the electric-field noise, which was attributed to the presence of surface-modified phononic coupling noise. We anticipate that our findings will contribute to a better understanding of the origins of surface 1/f electric-field noise, as well as identify optimal covering materials for enhancing the coherence time of near-surface NV centers.
The nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond exhibits spin-dependent fluorescence and long spin coherence times under ambient conditions, enabling applications in quantum information processing and sensing. NV centers near the surface can have strong interactions with external materials and spins, enabling new forms of nanoscale spectroscopy. However, NV spin coherence degrades within 100 nm of the surface, suggesting that diamond surfaces are plagued with ubiquitous defects. Prior work on characterizing near-surface noise has primarily relied on using NV centers themselves as probes; while this has the advantage of exquisite sensitivity, it provides only indirect information about the origin of the noise. Here we demonstrate that surface spectroscopy methods and single-spin measurements can be used as complementary diagnostics to understand sources of noise. We find that surface morphology is crucial for realizing reproducible chemical termination, and use this insight to achieve a highly ordered, oxygen-terminated surface with suppressed noise. We observe NV centers within 10 nm of the surface with coherence times extended by an order of magnitude.
The nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond exhibits spin-dependent fluorescence and long spin coherence times under ambient conditions, enabling applications in quantum information processing and sensing.NV centers near the surface can have strong interactions with external materials and spins, enabling new forms of nanoscale spectroscopy.However, NV spin coherence degrades within 100 nm of the surface, suggesting that diamond surfaces are plagued with ubiquitous defects.Prior work on characterizing near-surface noise has primarily relied on using NV centers themselves as probes; while this has the advantage of exquisite sensitivity, it provides only indirect information about the origin of the noise.Here we demonstrate that surface spectroscopy methods and single-spin measurements can be used as complementary diagnostics to understand sources of noise.We find that surface morphology is crucial for realizing reproducible chemical termination, and use this insight to achieve a highly ordered, oxygenterminated surface with suppressed noise.We observe NV centers within 10 nm of the surface with coherence times extended by an order of magnitude.
Shallow nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond are promising nanoscale quantum sensors, yet their coherence is strongly limited by surface-induced noise. Surface adsorbates are widely believed to be a major source of decoherence. Here, we test this assumption by characterizing shallow single NV centers under ultrahigh vacuum (UHV) conditions, where the diamond surface is kept free of adsorbates, and comparing their behavior to ambient conditions. Surprisingly, we observe a ~4x reduction in the Hahn echo coherence time T2 in UHV. By combining Hahn echo measurements in the single-quantum (SQ) and double-quantum (DQ) bases, we separate contributions from different noise sources and find that both electric and magnetic noise are enhanced in UHV. In contrast, T1 measurements reveal an increased DQ T1 in UHV, indicating suppressed electric field noise in the ~100 MHz frequency regime. These results point to a modification of the surface noise spectrum upon adsorbate removal, with different frequency regimes arising from distinct microscopic mechanisms. Specifically, we find that the low frequency noise is consistent with increased surface charge in UHV that can be compensated by surface adsorbates in ambient conditions. Our findings highlight a complex and previously underappreciated role of surface adsorbates in shaping the noise environment of shallow NV centers, with important implications for nanoscale quantum sensing.