Demonstration of vector magnetic field sensing by simultaneous control of nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond using multi-frequency microwave pulses

Abstract

An ensemble of nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond is a fascinating candidate for realizing a sensitive magnetic field sensor. In particular, since the axes of the NV centers are distributed along four directions, a collection of measurement data from NV centers with different axes provides information on the vector components of a magnetic field. However, in the conventional approach, the low measurement contrast of NV centers limits the sensitivity of vector magnetic field sensing. Recently, to overcome this problem, multi-frequency control of the NV centers has been proposed. The key idea is that four types of NV centers with different axes are simultaneously controlled by multi-frequency microwave pulses. Here, we demonstrate vector magnetic field sensing with an ensemble of NV centers in diamond via such multi-frequency control with pulsed-type measurements. We use Hahn echo pulses and extract information on the vector components of an applied AC magnetic field. We find that the sensitivity of the vector field sensing with multi-frequency control is better than that with single-frequency control for every vector component of a magnetic field.