# Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy with a superconducting flux qubit

## TL;DR

This paper theoretically investigates using a superconducting flux qubit as a sensitive NMR sensor capable of detecting small nuclear spin populations in localized regions at very low temperatures and magnetic fields.

## Contribution

It introduces two novel approaches for NMR detection with flux qubits, analyzing their sensitivity and feasibility with realistic experimental parameters.

## Key findings

- Detects nuclear spins with densities around 10^{21} /cm^3 in one second
- Achieves detection of approximately 10^8 nuclear spins in one second
- Proposes two methods: inhomogeneous RF excitation and dynamical decoupling for NMR with flux qubits

## Abstract

We theoretically analyze the performance of the nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy with a superconducting flux qubit (FQ). Such NMR with the FQ is attractive because of the possibility to detect the relatively small number of nuclear spins in a local region ($\sim\mu$m) with low temperatures ($\sim$ mK) and low magnetic fields ($\sim$ mT), in which other types of quantum sensing schemes cannot easily access. A sample containing nuclear spins is directly attached on the FQ, and the FQ is used as a magnetometer to detect magnetic fields from the nuclear spins. Especially, we consider two types of approaches to NMR with the FQ. One of them is to use spatially inhomogeneous excitations of the nuclear spins, which are induced by a spatially asymmetric driving with radio frequency~(RF) pulses. Such an inhomogeneity causes a change in the DC magnetic flux penetrating a loop of the FQ, which can be detected by a standard Ramsey measurement on the FQ. The other approach is to use a dynamical decoupling on the FQ to measure AC magnetic fields induced by Larmor precession of the nuclear spins. In this case, neither a spin excitation nor a spin polarization is required since the signal comes from fluctuating magnetic fields of the nuclear spins. We calculate the minimum detectable density (number) of the nuclear spins for the FQ with experimentally feasible parameters. We show that the minimum detectable density (number) of the nuclear spins with these approaches is around $10^{21}$ /cm$^3$ ($10^8$) with an accumulation time of a second.