Nanoscale electric-field imaging based on a quantum sensor and its charge-state control under ambient condition

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates nanoscale electric-field imaging using nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond, achieving ~10 nm resolution and enabling electric control of the NV charge state under ambient conditions.

Contribution

It introduces a method for nanoscale electric-field mapping with a quantum sensor, overcoming previous coupling limitations and enabling charge-state control at sub-5 nm precision.

Findings

Achieved ~10 nm spatial resolution in electric-field imaging.

Demonstrated electric control of NV charge state with sub-5 nm precision.

First to perform nanoscale electric-field imaging with a single quantum sensor.

Abstract

Nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond can be used as quantum sensors to image the magnetic field with nanoscale resolution. However, nanoscale electric-field mapping has not been achieved so far because of the relatively weak coupling strength between NV and electric field. Using individual shallow NVs, here we succeeded to quantitatively image the contours of electric field from a sharp tip of a qPlus-based atomic force microscope (AFM), and achieved a spatial resolution of ~10 nm. Through such local electric fields, we demonstrated electric control of NV's charge state with sub-5 nm precision. This work represents the first step towards nanoscale scanning electrometry based on a single quantum sensor and may open up new possibility of quantitatively mapping local charge, electric polarization, and dielectric response in a broad spectrum of functional materials at nanoscale.