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A CMOS-integrated quantum sensor based on nitrogen–vacancy centres

Nature Electronics volume 2, pages 284–289 (2019)Cite this article

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Abstract

The nitrogen–vacancy (NV) centre in diamond can be used as a solid-state quantum sensor with applications in magnetometry, electrometry, thermometry and chemical sensing. However, to deliver practical applications, existing NV-based sensing techniques, which are based on bulky and discrete instruments for spin control and detection, must be replaced by more compact designs. Here we show that NV-based quantum sensing can be integrated with complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) technology to create a compact and scalable platform. Using standard CMOS technology, we integrate the essential components for NV control and measurement—microwave generator, optical filter and photodetector—in a 200 μm × 200 μm footprint. With this platform we demonstrate quantum magnetometry with a sensitivity of 32.1 μT Hz−1/2 and simultaneous thermometry.

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Fig. 1: CMOS-integrated quantum sensing architecture.
Fig. 2: NV energy level diagram and ODMR spectra.
Fig. 3: On-chip CMOS microwave generation and inductor characteristics.
Fig. 4: On-chip detection of NV spin-dependent fluorescence.
Fig. 5: On-chip detection of ODMR and NV-based quantum magnetometry.

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Data availability

The data that support the plots within this paper and other findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This research is supported in part by the Army Research Office Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (ARO MURI) biological transduction programme. D.K. acknowledges financial support from the Kwanjeong Educational Foundation. M.I.I. acknowledges support from the Singaporean-MIT Research Alliance (SMART) and the MIT Center of Integrated Circuits and Systems. C.F. acknowledges support from Master Dynamic Limited and from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Advanced by Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering (RAISE) Transformational Advances in Quantum Systems (TAQS). M.E.T. acknowledges support by an appointment to the Intelligence Community Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Program at MIT, administered by Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education through an interagency agreement between the US Department of Energy and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Donggyu Kim, Mohamed I. Ibrahim, Christopher Foy

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Donggyu Kim, Christopher Foy, Matthew E. Trusheim & Dirk R. Englund

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Donggyu Kim

  3. Microsystems Technology Laboratories, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Mohamed I. Ibrahim, Ruonan Han & Dirk R. Englund

  4. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Mohamed I. Ibrahim, Christopher Foy, Matthew E. Trusheim, Ruonan Han & Dirk R. Englund

Authors
  1. Donggyu Kim
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Contributions

D.R.E. and R.H. initially conceived the diamond–CMOS integration. M.I.I. conceived the idea of stacking the microwave inductor, plasmonic filter and photodiode in a 3D architecture. M.I.I., C.F. and D.K. contributed to chip specifications, design and the experiment. M.I.I. constructed the CMOS chip prototype. D.K. performed FDTD simulations for the optical filter design and the diamond transfer on the CMOS chip. C.F. prepared the control software for the experiment. C.F. and D.K. constructed the optical set-up and etched the CMOS passivation layers. All authors contributed to discussion of the experimental results and writing of the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Ruonan Han or Dirk R. Englund.

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Competing interests

The chip-scale spin control and detection scheme in this work has been filed in a United States provisional patent application (62/623151).

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Kim, D., Ibrahim, M.I., Foy, C. et al. A CMOS-integrated quantum sensor based on nitrogen–vacancy centres. Nat Electron 2, 284–289 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-019-0275-5

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