The diamond Nitrogen-Vacancy center as a probe of random fluctuations in a nuclear spin ensemble

New schemes that exploit the unique properties of Nitrogen-Vacancy (NV) centers in diamond are presently being explored as a platform for high-resolution magnetic sensing. Here we focus on the ability of a NV center to monitor an adjacent mesoscopic nuclear spin bath. For this purpose, we conduct comparative experiments where the NV spin evolves under the influence of surrounding 13C nuclei or, alternatively, in the presence of asynchronous AC fields engineered to emulate bath fluctuations. Our study reveals substantial differences that underscore the limitations of the semi-classical picture when interpreting and predicting the outcome of experiments designed to probe small nuclear spin ensembles. In particular, our study elucidates the NV center response to bath fluctuations under common pulse sequences, and explores a detection protocol designed to probe time correlations of the nuclear spin bath dynamics. Further, we show that the presence of macroscopic nuclear spin order is key to the emergence of semi-classical spin magnetometry.Comment: 30 pages, 4 figure

Magnetometry of random AC magnetic fields using a single Nitrogen-Vacancy center

We report on the use of a single NV center to probe fluctuating AC magnetic fields. Using engineered currents to induce random changes in the field amplitude and phase, we show that stochastic fluctuations reduce the NV center sensitivity and, in general, make the NV response field-dependent. We also introduce two modalities to determine the field spectral composition, unknown a priori in a practical application. One strategy capitalizes on the generation of AC-field-induced coherence 'revivals', while the other approach uses the time-tagged fluorescence intensity record from successive NV observations to reconstruct the AC field spectral density. These studies are relevant for magnetic sensing in scenarios where the field of interest has a non-trivial, stochastic behavior, such as sensing unpolarized nuclear spin ensembles at low static magnetic fields.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figure

METHOD FOR HYPER-POLARIZING NUCLEAR SPNS AT ARBTRARY MAGNETIC FELDS

A method of dynamically polarizing the nuclear spin host of nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond is provided. The method uses optical, microwave and radio-frequency pulses to recursively transfer spin polarization from the NV electronic spin. Nitrogen nuclear spin initialization approaching 80% at room temperature is demonstrated both in ensemble and single NV centers without relying on level anti-crossings. This makes the method applicable at arbitrary magnetic fields

Optical patterning of trapped charge in nitrogen-doped diamond

The nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centre in diamond is emerging as a promising platform for solid-state quantum information processing and nanoscale metrology. Of interest in these applications is the manipulation of the NV charge, which can be attained by optical excitation. Here we use two-color optical microscopy to investigate the dynamics of NV photo-ionization, charge diffusion, and trapping in type-1b diamond. We combine fixed-point laser excitation and scanning fluorescence imaging to locally alter the concentration of negatively charged NVs, and to subsequently probe the corresponding redistribution of charge. We uncover the formation of spatial patterns of trapped charge, which we qualitatively reproduce via a model of the interplay between photo-excited carriers and atomic defects. Further, by using the NV as a probe, we map the relative fraction of positively charged nitrogen upon localized optical excitation. These observations may prove important to transporting quantum information between NVs or to developing three-dimensional, charge-based memories

Direct current control of three magnon scattering processes in spin-valve nanocontacts

We have investigated the generation of spin waves in the free layer of an extended spin-valve structure with a nano-scaled point contact driven by both microwave and direct electric current using Brillouin light scattering microscopy. Simultaneously with the directly excited spin waves, strong nonlinear effects are observed, namely the generation of eigenmodes with integer multiple frequencies (2 \emph{f}, 3 \emph{f}, 4 \emph{f}) and modes with non-integer factors (0.5 \emph{f}, 1.5 \emph{f}) with respect to the excitation frequency \emph{f}. The origin of these nonlinear modes is traced back to three magnon scattering processes. The direct current influence on the generation of the fundamental mode at frequency \emph{f} can be related to the spin-transfer torque, while the efficiency of three-magnon-scattering processes is controlled by the Oersted field as an additional effect of the direct current