Nitrogen Vacancy Centers for Quantum Sensing Applications

Nitrogen Vacancy (NV) centers in diamond are point defects in the diamond crystal structure, consisting in a substitutional nitrogen atom and adjacent vacancy. Such defects have attracted significant interest in the context of quantum sensing technologies, due to their unique combination of optical addressability, long spin coherence times at room temperature and magnetic field and temperature sensitivities at the nanoscale. In this seminar, we will overview the fundamental aspects of this technology, as well as our present portfolio of fabrication, characterization, and sensing capabilities. We will discuss how NVs allow for a powerful and practical platform for sensing applications. Particularly in the context of NV ensembles, we will show that they allow for wide-field vector magnetometry; a technique that is being employed for imaging magnetic nanoparticle distributions [1] or inhomogeneities in the current flow of nanoscale devices [2].   [1] N. Mathes et. al., Nanoscale Adv. 6, 247 (2024) [2] J. P. Tetienne et. al., Sci. Adv. 3, e1602429 (2017)