Optimising nitrogen-vacancy based widefield imaging for broadband applications

Abstract

The ability of the so-called Nitrogen-Vacancy (NV) centre in diamond to operate under a wide span of external parameters, including ambient conditions, combined with the atom-like magnetic Zeeman sensitivity, has led to its intensive investigation as a nanoscale magnetometer. Its combined properties have led to remarkable achievements over the past decades, and lab‐scale technologies are now transferred into real‐world applications. To this end, the widefield imaging approach is a particularly engaging microscopy configuration with high potential for technology transfer. Using this system, this thesis explores current challenges in microelectronics, such as efficiently imaging vectorial magnetic fields on the nanoscale and mapping current densities in modern integrated circuits with three-dimensional architecture. Additionally, this work investigates challenges in biology, such as observing the mechanical activity of a single cell, which plays a fundamental role in cell motility. Finally, the NV centres are used to infer the dissolved oxygen levels in water, which has the potential to identify the harm that humankind's activities present to the ocean. This work highlights how the NV-based widefield imager can serve to bridge gaps across multiple disciplines.