Seminarium Fizyki Ciała Stałego

Color centers are defects in the crystal structure that can have drastically different properties from their host material. In recent years, an increasing number of groups have been focusing on color centers in diamond. Among the several hundred cataloged ones, the nitrogen-vacancy (NV) type has gained particular popularity. Such centers can be regarded as "quasi-atoms" trapped in the perfectly transparent crystal lattice of diamond, allowing for their long-term observation and precise optical measurements. An important feature of NV centers, especially for quantum metrology, is their possession of a nonzero spin (S=1) in the ground state and the ability to control it through optical and microwave fields. The small size of these centers, on the order of ~0.15 nm, makes them ideal for micro- and nanoscale metrology needs. Consequently, NV centers are used as highly sensitive sensors for measuring magnetic and electric fields, as fluorescent markers in imaging biological materials, and as optically initialized and read-out qubits in quantum information processing.In my presentation, I will discuss the physics underlying NV centers and various possibilities for their sensing applications, with particular emphasis on optically detected magnetic resonance. I will then focus on applications of NV centers in magnetometry and the potential for imaging magnetic fields with high spatial resolution. Finally, I will discuss the results of our work on the development of hybrid sensors based on diamond and glasses, as well as biological studies using NV-rich nanodiamonds.