Invited Speaker Australian & New Zealand Society of Magnetic Resonance Conference 2017

Nanoscale electric and mechanical sensing using spins in diamond (#78)

Marcus Doherty 1
  1. Australian National University, ACT, Australia

The nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centre is a remarkable defect in diamond that is at the frontier of quantum technology. Most notably, it has driven major advances in quantum nanosensing and microscopy, and has highly promising applications in diverse scientific fields, such as single-molecule NMR/ MRI and sub-cellular biosensing. Thus far, attention has been predominately focussed on the centre’s magnetic sensing capabilities. However, the centre also has exciting electric and mechanical sensing capabilities. In this presentation, I will first describe the mechanisms by which the optically detected spin resonances of the NV centre can be used for high-sensitivity nanoscale electric and mechanical sensing. I will then report preliminary steps towards nanoelectrometry applications, such as neurosensing and single-molecule vibrational resonance spectroscopy, and towards nanomechanical sensing applications, such as cellular force microscopy and on-chip single-molecule mass spectroscopy.