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Scanned probe imaging of nanoscale magnetism at cryogenic temperatures with a single-spin quantum sensor

Nature Nanotechnology volume 11, pages 700–705 (2016)Cite this article

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Abstract

High-spatial-resolution magnetic imaging has driven important developments in fields ranging from materials science to biology. However, to uncover finer details approaching the nanoscale with greater sensitivity requires the development of a radically new sensor technology. The nitrogen–vacancy (NV) defect in diamond has emerged as a promising candidate for such a sensor on the basis of its atomic size and quantum-limited sensing capabilities. It has remained an outstanding challenge to implement the NV centre as a nanoscale scanning magnetic probe at cryogenic temperatures, however, where many solid-state systems exhibit non-trivial magnetic order. Here, we present NV magnetic imaging down to 6 K with 3 μT Hz–1/2 field sensitivity, and use the technique to image vortices in the iron pnictide superconductor BaFe2(As0.7P0.3)2 with critical temperature Tc = 30 K. The expansion of NV-based magnetic imaging to cryogenic temperatures will enable future studies of previously inaccessible nanoscale magnetism in condensed-matter systems.

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Figure 1: Cryogenic NV scanning probe magnetometry.
Figure 2: Single-crystal diamond AFM probes.
Figure 3: Comparison of magnetic imaging protocols.
Figure 4: High-spatial-resolution magnetic imaging at T = 6 K.
Figure 5: NV magnetometry of vortices in the iron pnictide superconductor BaFe2(As0.7P0.3)2 at T = 6 K.

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Acknowledgements

We thank B. Myers, D. Rugar, J. Mamin and B. Shen for helpful discussions. The work at UCSB was supported by an Air Force Office of Scientific Research PECASE award, DARPA QuASAR, and the MRSEC Program of the National Science Foundation under Award No. DMR 1121053. The work at UCLA was supported by the US Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences under Award Number DE-SC0011978. M.P. acknowledges support from the Harvey L. Karp Discovery award.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, 93106, California, USA

    Matthew Pelliccione, Alec Jenkins, Preeti Ovartchaiyapong, Christopher Reetz & Ania C. Bleszynski Jayich

  2. Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, 90095, California, USA

    Eve Emmanouilidou & Ni Ni

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Contributions

M.P. and A.J. designed the experimental apparatus, carried out the experiments and analysed the data. A.J. and C.R. performed the simulations. P.O. fabricated the diamond probes. E.E. and N.N. provided the iron pnictide sample. M.P. and A.C.B.J. wrote the paper with feedback from all authors. A.C.B.J. supervised the project.

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Correspondence to Ania C. Bleszynski Jayich.

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Pelliccione, M., Jenkins, A., Ovartchaiyapong, P. et al. Scanned probe imaging of nanoscale magnetism at cryogenic temperatures with a single-spin quantum sensor. Nature Nanotech 11, 700–705 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2016.68

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