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arXiv · 2011.04473

Nanoscale electric-field imaging based on a quantum sensor and its charge-state control under ambient condition

Ke Bian·Wentian Zheng·Xianzhe Zeng·Xiakun Chen·Rainer Stohr·Andrej Denisenko·Sen Yang·Joerg Wrachtrup·Ying Jiang
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Abstract

Nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond can be used as quantum sensors to image the magnetic field with nanoscale resolution. However, nanoscale electric-field mapping has not been achieved so far because of the relatively weak coupling strength between NV and electric field. Using individual shallow NVs, here we succeeded to quantitatively image the contours of electric field from a sharp tip of a qPlus-based atomic force microscope (AFM), and achieved a spatial resolution of ~10 nm. Through such local electric fields, we demonstrated electric control of NV's charge state with sub-5 nm precision. This work represents the first step towards nanoscale scanning electrometry based on a single quantum sensor and may open up new possibility of quantitatively mapping local charge, electric polarization, and dielectric response in a broad spectrum of functional materials at nanoscale.

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Ke Bian, Wentian Zheng, Xianzhe Zeng, Xiakun Chen, Rainer Stohr, Andrej Denisenko, Sen Yang, Joerg Wrachtrup, Ying Jiang. 2020-11-09. Nanoscale electric-field imaging based on a quantum sensor and its charge-state control under ambient condition. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-22709-9

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