Optically Enhanced Electric Field Sensing Using Nitrogen-Vacancy Ensembles
Maxwell Block, Bryce Kobrin, Andrey Jarmola, Satcher Hsieh, Chong Zu, Nataniel L. Figueroa, Víctor M. Acosta, Joaquín Minguzzi, J. R. Maze, Dmitry Budker, Norman Y. Yao
Abstract
Ensembles of nitrogen-vacancy (N-$V$) centers in diamond show promise as versatile electric field sensors, but are limited by noise from an inhomogeneous internal charge environment. Here researchers develop a scheme for optically enhanced electrometry that improves N-$V$ sensitivity to external electric fields, especially at low temperatures. They also implement a complementary method for experimentally extracting the color center's excited-state electric field susceptibilities, and they provide a simple scaling theory for optimizing the density of N-$V$ defects in electrometry applications.