Yinyao Shi | Searcharxiv

arXiv2025

Universal Reconstruction of Complex Magnetic Profiles with Minimum Prior Assumptions

Understanding intricate magnetic structures in materials is essential for advancing materials science, spintronics, and geology. Recent developments of quantum-enabled magnetometers, such as nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond, have enabled direct imaging of magnetic field distributions across a wide range of magnetic profiles. However, reconstructing the magnetization from an experimentally measured magnetic field map is a complex inverse problem, further complicated by measurement noise, finite spatial resolution, and variations in sample-to-sensor distance. In this work, we present a novel and efficient GPU-accelerated method for reconstructing spatially varying magnetization density from measured magnetic fields with minimal prior assumptions. We validate our method by simulating diverse magnetic structures under realistic experimental conditions, including multi-domain ferromagnetism and magnetic spin textures such as skyrmion, anti-skyrmion, and meron. Experimentally, we reconstruct the magnetization of a micrometer-scale Apollo lunar mare basalt (sample 10003,184) and a nanometer-scale twisted double-trilayer CrI3. The basalt exhibits soft ferromagnetic domains consistent with previous paleomagnetic studies, whereas the CrI3 system reveals a well-defined hexagonal magnetic Moire superlattice. Our approach provides a versatile and universal tool for investigating complex magnetization profiles, paving the way for future quantum sensing experiments.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2024

Optically-Trapped Nanodiamond-Relaxometry Detection of Nanomolar Paramagnetic Spins in Aqueous Environments

Probing electrical and magnetic properties in aqueous environments remains a frontier challenge in nanoscale sensing. Our inability to do so with quantitative accuracy imposes severe limitations, for example, on our understanding of the ionic environments in a diverse array of systems, ranging from novel materials to the living cell. The Nitrogen-Vacancy (NV) center in fluorescent nanodiamonds (FNDs) has emerged as a good candidate to sense temperature, pH, and the concentration of paramagnetic species at the nanoscale, but comes with several hurdles such as particle-to-particle variation which render calibrated measurements difficult, and the challenge to tightly confine and precisely position sensors in aqueous environment. To address this, we demonstrate relaxometry with NV centers within optically-trapped FNDs. In a proof of principle experiment, we show that optically-trapped FNDs enable highly reproducible nanomolar sensitivity to the paramagnetic ion, (\mathrm{Gd}^{3+}). We capture the three distinct phases of our experimental data by devising a model analogous to nanoscale Langmuir adsorption combined with spin coherence dynamics. Our work provides a basis for routes to sense free paramagnetic ions and molecules in biologically relevant conditions.

quant-ph↗