Nanoscale scanning sensors

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12169209-B2
Application number	US-202318485478-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 12, 2023
Priority date	Aug 22, 2012
Publication date	Dec 17, 2024
Grant date	Dec 17, 2024

Abstract

A sensing probe may be formed of a diamond material comprising one or more spin defects that are configured to emit fluorescent light and are located no more than 50 nm from a sensing surface of the sensing probe. The sensing probe may include an optical outcoupling structure formed by the diamond material and configured to optically guide the fluorescent light toward an output end of the optical outcoupling structure. An optical detector may detect the fluorescent light that is emitted from the spin defects and that exits through the output end of the optical outcoupling structure after being optically guided therethrough. A mounting system may hold the sensing probe and control a distance between the sensing surface of the sensing probe and a surface of a sample while permitting relative motion between the sensing surface and the sample surface.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An atomic force microscope platform formed of monolithic diamond material, the atomic force microscope platform comprising:
one or more spin defects configured to emit fluorescent light; and
an optical outcoupling structure formed by the monolithic diamond material and configured to optically guide the fluorescent light emitted by the one or more spin defects toward an output end of the optical outcoupling structure,
wherein the one or more spin defects are located no more than 50 nm from a sensing surface of the atomic force microscope platform;
wherein the atomic force microscope platform including the optical outcoupling structure is formed of a diamond component having at least one linear dimension greater than 1 μm in length;
wherein the atomic force microscope platform further comprises an attachment region located remote from the outcoupling structure and configured to be attached to an atomic force microscope.

2. The atomic force microscope platform of claim 1 , wherein the one or more spin defects are located no more than 40 nm, 30 nm, 20 nm, 15 nm, 12 nm, or 10 nm from the sensing surface of the atomic force microscope platform.

3. The atomic force microscope platform of claim 1 , wherein the one or more spin defects are NV—(nitrogen-vacancy) defects.

4. The atomic force microscope platform of claim 1 , wherein a decoherence time of the one or more spin defects is greater than 10 μsec, 50 μsec, 100 μsec, 200 μsec, 300 μsec, 500 μsec, or 700 μsec.

5. The atomic force microscope platform of claim 1 , wherein the atomic force microscope platform including the optical outcoupling structure is formed of a single crystal diamond material.

6. The atomic force microscope platform of claim 1 , wherein the optical outcoupling structure is formed of a nanopillar.

7. The atomic force microscope platform of claim 6 , wherein the nanopillar has a diameter between 100 nm and 300 nm, and a length between 0.5 μm and 5 μm.

8. The atomic force microscope platform of claim 1 , wherein the atomic force microscope platform comprises no more than 50, 30, 10, 5, 3, 2, or 1 spin defects located no more than 50 nm from the sensing surface and optically coupled to the optical outcoupling structure.

9. The atomic force microscope platform of claim 1 , wherein the atomic force microscope tip comprises more than 50 spin defects in the form of a layer located no more than 50 nm from the sensing surface and optically coupled to the optical outcoupling structure.

10. A system comprising:
an atomic force microscope platform formed of monolithic diamond material, the atomic force microscope platform comprising one or more spin defects configured to emit fluorescent light, and an optical outcoupling structure formed by the monolithic diamond material and configured to optically guide the fluorescent light emitted by the one or more spin defects toward an output end of the optical outcoupling structure,
wherein the one or more spin defects are located no more than 50 nm from a sensing surface of the atomic force microscope platform, and wherein the atomic force microscope platform including the optical outcoupling structure is formed of a diamond component having at least one linear dimension greater than 1 μm in length, and wherein the atomic force microscope platform further comprises an attachment region located remote from the outcoupling structure and configured to be attached to an atomic force microscope;
an optical excitation source configured to generate excitation light directed to the one or more spin defects causing the one or more spin defects to fluoresce;
an optical detector configured to detect the fluorescent light that is emitted from the one or more spin defect and that exits through the output end of the optical outcoupling structure after being optically guided therethrough; and
a mounting system comprising an atomic force microscope and configured to hold the atomic force microscope platform and control a distance between the sensing surface of the atomic force microscope platform and a surface of a sample while permitting relative motion between the sensing surface of the atomic force microscope platform and the sample surface.

11. The system of claim 10 , comprising an optical microscope coupled to the mounting system and configured to optically address and readout the one or more spin defects.

12. The system of claim 10 , further comprising a microwave source, and wherein the microwave source is configured to generate microwaves tuned to a resonant frequency of at least one of the spin defects.

13. The system of claim 12 , wherein the one or more spin defects are NV defects, and
wherein the system is configured to detect an external magnetic field by measuring a Zeeman shift of a spin state of the NV defects.

14. The system of claim 13 , wherein the microwaves comprise a spin-decoupling sequence of pulses, and wherein the sequence includes at least one of:
a Hahn spin-echo pulse sequence;
a CPMG (Carr Purcell Meiboom Gill) pulse sequence;
an XY pulse sequence; and
a MREVB pulse sequence.

15. The system of claim 10 , wherein the system is configured to have an AC magnetic field detection sensitivity better than 200, 100, 75, 60, 50, 25, 10, or 5 nT Hz-1/2.

16. The system of claim 10 , wherein the system is configured to have a DC magnetic field detection sensitivity better than 50, 20, 10, 6, 4, 1, or 0.5 μT Hz-1/2.

17. The system of claim 10 , wherein the system is configured to resolve single spin defects in a sample.

18. The system of claim 10 , wherein required integration time for single spin imaging with a signal to noise ratio of 2 is less than 5 mins, 3 mins, 2 mins, 1 min, 30 seconds, 15 seconds, 10 seconds, 5 seconds, 2 seconds, 1 second, or 0.5 second.

Assignees

• Harvard College

Inventors

• Grinolds Michael S
• Hong Sungkun
• Maletinsky Patrick
• Yacoby Amir

Classifications

• G01Q60/38

  Probes, their manufacture, or their related instrumentation, e.g. holders · CPC title

• G01N2201/10

  Scanning · CPC title

• G01N21/645

  Specially adapted constructive features of fluorimeters · CPC title

• G01R33/323

  Detection of MR without the use of RF or microwaves, e.g. force-detected MR, thermally detected MR, MR detection via electrical conductivity, optically detected MR · CPC title

• G01R33/022

  Measuring gradient · CPC title