Sub-nanotesla sensitivity at the nanoscale with a single spin

Zhiyuan Zhao; Xiangyu Ye; Shaoyi Xu; Pei Yu; Zhiping Yang; Xi Kong; Ya Wang; Tianyu Xie; Fazhan Shi; Jiangfeng Du

doi:10.1093/nsr/nwad100

Sub-nanotesla sensitivity at the nanoscale with a single spin

Natl Sci Rev. 2023 Apr 20;10(12):nwad100. doi: 10.1093/nsr/nwad100. eCollection 2023 Dec.

Authors

Zhiyuan Zhao^{1

2}, Xiangyu Ye^{1

2}, Shaoyi Xu^{1

2}, Pei Yu^{1

2}, Zhiping Yang^{1

2}, Xi Kong³, Ya Wang^{1

2

4}, Tianyu Xie^{1

2}, Fazhan Shi^{1

2

4

5}, Jiangfeng Du^{1

2

4}

Affiliations

¹ CAS Key Laboratory of Microscale Magnetic Resonance and School of Physical Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China.
² CAS Center for Excellence in Quantum Information and Quantum Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China.
³ National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures and Department of Physics, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China.
⁴ Hefei National Laboratory, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230088, China.
⁵ School of Biomedical Engineering and Suzhou Institute for Advanced Research, University of Science and Technology of China, Suzhou 215123, China.

Abstract

High-sensitivity detection of the microscopic magnetic field is essential in many fields. Good sensitivity and high spatial resolution are mutually contradictory in measurement, which is quantified by the energy resolution limit. Here we report that a sensitivity of 0.5 nT/[Formula: see text] at the nanoscale is achieved experimentally by using nitrogen-vacancy defects in diamond with depths of tens of nanometers. The achieved sensitivity is substantially enhanced by integrating with multiple quantum techniques, including real-time-feedback initialization, dynamical decoupling with shaped pulses and repetitive readout via quantum logic. Our magnetic sensors will shed new light on searching new physics beyond the standard model, investigating microscopic magnetic phenomena in condensed matters, and detection of life activities at the sub-cellular scale.

Keywords: energy resolution limit; magnetic sensitivity; nanoscale; quantum sensing; spatial resolution.