Magnetic sensitivity enhancement via polarimetric excitation and detection of an ensemble of NV centers

Abstract

The negatively charged nitrogen-vacancy center (NV) presents remarkable spin-dependent optical properties that make it an interesting tool for magnetic field sensing. In this paper we exploit the polarization properties of the NV center absorption and emission processes to improve the magnetic sensitivity of an ensemble of NV centers. By simply equipping the experimental set-up of a half-wave plate in the excitation path and a polarizer in the detection path we demonstrate an improvement larger than a factor of two on the NV center magnetic sensitivity.

Limitations of Bulk Diamond Sensors for Single-Cell Thermometry

“…The possibility of using bulk diamonds instead of nanodiamonds would be interesting. Considering ODMR measurements on NV ensembles, nanodiamonds present a lower sensitivity compared to bulk diamonds, because of their shorter coherence time (as already mentioned), the lower density of their color centers, and the difficulty in taking advantage of the field alignment [ 39 ] and laser polarization [ 40 ]. On the contrary, a bulk diamond allows ODMR measurements with micrometric spatial resolution on the x-y plane using a focused laser beam and nanometric resolution along the z-direction using a diamond with a thin layer of NV centers [ 41 ].…”