A team of academicians from the University of Science and Technology of China achieves high-precision imaging of point defects in diamond

Recently, Du Jiangfeng, Wang Ya and others from the Key Laboratory of Microscopic Magnetic Resonance of the Chinese Academy of Sciences at the University of Science and Technology of China have made important progress in the field of quantum precision measurement, proposing a new quantum sensing paradigm based on signal correlation to achieve high-precision imaging of point defects in diamond. , and observed the charge dynamics of point defects in real time.

In the past two decades, the development of quantum sensing has made revolutionary progress in the measurement technology of many physical quantities. For example, nanoscale diamond nitrogen-vacancy color center quantum sensors are expected to achieve structural analysis of single molecules. Taking magnetic measurements as an example, the current quantum sensing paradigm to achieve structure resolution requires quantum manipulation of labeled spin detection targets. However, many physical phenomena in nature neither contain spin nor can be directly manipulated, such as random telegraph signals caused by charge dynamics in semiconductors. More importantly, when signals from multiple detection objects overlap and interfere with each other, a single quantum sensor will be unable to effectively extract and analyze the signals.

Figure: (a) A single quantum sensor detects a single random telegraph signal; (b) A single quantum sensor detects multiple random telegraph signals; (c) Multiple quantum sensors detect multiple random telegraph signals.

To this end, this work proposes a new quantum sensing paradigm, which uses the signal correlation between multiple quantum sensors to improve the analysis capabilities and reconstruction accuracy of complex objects. Based on the independently developed nitrogen-vacancy color center preparation technology, the research team can controlly prepare three nitrogen-vacancy color centers about 200 nanometers apart as a quantum sensing system. They demonstrated this new quantum sensing by detecting random electric fields. paradigm.

Diamond is a wide-bandgap semiconductor material with excellent properties. The charge dynamics of point defects in the material will bring random electric field noise. In this work, the DC Stark effect of the excited state of diamond nitrogen-vacancy color center is used to realize the sensing of electric field. When the charge state of a point defect changes, three nitrogen-vacancy color centers can simultaneously detect changes in the electric field caused by the change in charge. Using the correlation characteristics of simultaneous changes in the electric field between the three color centers, the electric field corresponding to each point defect can be resolved from the chaotic fluctuation electric field. And since the relative spatial positions of each point defect and the three nitrogen-vacancy color centers are different, the spatial position of the point defect can be accurately located based on the difference in the direction and magnitude of the electric field felt by each nitrogen-vacancy color center. Using this quantum positioning technology, which is similar to satellite positioning, the research team successfully located 16 point defects within the micron range, with a maximum positioning accuracy of 1.7 nanometers. Based on this ability of correlation resolution and precise positioning, the research team also achieved in-situ real-time detection of the charge dynamics of each point defect, providing a new method for studying the properties of point defects within bulk materials.

Figure: (a) Schematic diagram of the experimental system. The small picture shows the super-resolution imaging of the three-color center system used in this work; (b) The fluctuation of the peak position of the resonance fluorescence excitation spectrum corresponds to the electric field at each color center. Fluctuations; (c) Different defects can be distinguished by using the correlation between the electric field fluctuation signals of the three color centers; (d) Schematic diagram of the quantum positioning system; (e) 16 positioned around the three color centers Point defects.

This achievement demonstrates ultra-high-sensitivity defect detection based on quantum technology, which can detect defect concentrations at the 0.01ppb level (one defect occurs in one hundred billion normal atoms). This is more than two orders of magnitude higher than the detection limit of the current most sensitive method, and is expected to provide a powerful technical means for defect detection in current chips below ten nanometers.

Ji Wentao, special associate researcher of the Key Laboratory of Microscopic Magnetic Resonance, and doctoral candidates Liu Zhaoxin and Guo Yuhang are the co-first authors of this work, and Academician Du Jiangfeng and Professor Wang Ya are the co-corresponding authors. This research was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Ministry of Science and Technology, and Anhui Province

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A team of academicians from the University of Science and Technology of China achieves high-precision imaging of point defects in diamond

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