Optical Widefield Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Microscopy

TL;DR

This paper introduces optical widefield NMR microscopy using NV centers in diamond, enabling real-time, wide-area NMR imaging with high spatial resolution and multicomponent spectral information, bridging optical microscopy and NMR.

Contribution

The work presents a novel optical widefield NMR microscopy technique that captures NMR signals over a large area with pixel-level spectral data, a significant advancement over traditional MRI methods.

Findings

Achieved ~10 μm spatial resolution in NMR imaging.

Demonstrated real-time imaging over a 235x150 μm^2 area.

Captured multicomponent NMR spectra at each pixel.

Abstract

Microscopy enables detailed visualization and understanding of minute structures or processes. While cameras have significantly advanced optical, infrared, and electron microscopy, imaging nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) signals on a camera has remained elusive. Here, we employ nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond as a quantum sensor, which converts NMR signals into optical signals that are subsequently captured by a high-speed camera. Unlike traditional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), our method records the NMR signal over a wide field of view in real space. We demonstrate that our optical widefield NMR microscopy (OMRM) can image NMR signals in microfluidic structures with a $\sim 10\,\mu m$ resolution across a $\sim 235 \times 150\,\mu m^2$ area. Crucially, each camera pixel records an NMR spectrum providing multicomponent information about the signal's amplitude, phase, local magnetic field strengths, and gradients. The fusion of optical microscopy and NMR techniques enables multifaceted imaging applications in the physical and life sciences.