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Spin readout via spin-to-charge conversion in bulk diamond nitrogen-vacancy ensembles

MetadataDetails
Publication Date2018-09-17
JournalApplied Physics Letters
AuthorsHarishankar Jayakumar, Siddharth Dhomkar, Jacob Henshaw, Carlos A. Meriles
InstitutionsCity College of New York, The Graduate Center, CUNY
Citations24

We demonstrate the optical readout of ensembles of nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center spins in a bulk diamond sample via spin-to-charge conversion. A high power 594 nm laser is utilized to selectively ionize these paramagnetic defects in the mS=0 spin state with a contrast of up to 12%. In comparison to the conventional 520 nm spin readout, the spin-to-charge-conversion-based readout provides a higher signal-to-noise ratio, with tenfold sensing measurement speedup for millisecond long pulse sequences. This level of performance was achieved for an NVāˆ’ ionization of only 25%, limited by the ionization and readout laser powers. These observations pave the way to a range of high-sensitivity metrology applications where the use of NVāˆ’ ensembles in bulk diamond has proven useful, including sensing and imaging of target materials overlaid on the diamond surface.