Three-dimensional imaging of integrated-circuit activity using quantum defects in diamond
Marwa Garsi, Rainer Stöhr, Andrej Denisenko, Farida Shagieva, Nils Trautmann, Ulrich Vogl, Badou Sene, Florian Kaiser, Andrea Zappe, Rolf Reuter, Jörg Wrachtrup
Abstract
Three-dimensional semiconductor chip architectures promise high-density memory and much faster computation, but self-heating and leakage currents still severely limit performance. While current-density mapping is crucial to studying these issues in situ, nondestructive imaging has been limited to two dimensions. The authors use ensembles of nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond as nanoscale quantum sensors to probe all three vectorial components of magnetic fields associated with electric currents, for noninvasive imaging of three-dimensional currents in multilayer integrated circuits. Further improvements could reveal the local conductance of materials, to advance condensed matter physics.