Principles and Techniques of the Quantum Diamond Microscope

TL;DR

The paper reviews the principles, techniques, and applications of the Quantum Diamond Microscope, a device that uses nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond to produce high-resolution magnetic field images across various scientific fields.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of the experimental methods, measurement protocols, and diverse applications of the Quantum Diamond Microscope, highlighting recent advancements and implementation strategies.

Findings

QDM can image magnetic fields from DC to GHz frequencies.

It enables wide-field, high-resolution magnetic imaging.

Applications span geoscience, biology, and materials science.

Abstract

We provide an overview of the experimental techniques, measurement modalities, and diverse applications of the Quantum Diamond Microscope (QDM). The QDM employs a dense layer of fluorescent nitrogen-vacancy (NV) color centers near the surface of a transparent diamond chip on which a sample of interest is placed. NV electronic spins are coherently probed with microwaves and optically initialized and read out to provide spatially resolved maps of local magnetic fields. NV fluorescence is measured simultaneously across the diamond surface, resulting in a wide-field, two-dimensional magnetic field image with adjustable spatial pixel size set by the parameters of the imaging system. NV measurement protocols are tailored for imaging of broadband and narrowband fields, from DC to GHz frequencies. Here we summarize the physical principles common to diverse implementations of the QDM and review example applications of the technology in geoscience, biology, and materials science.