CAREER: Probing Antiferromagnetic Spintronics with Nitrogen-Vacancy Centers in Diamond

Non-Technical Abstract:

Antiferromagnets are advanced materials that are scientifically intriguing and technologically important. They have promising properties to bring new functionalities for developing next-generation information technologies, such as high-densities, ultrafast data processing speeds. Despite their potential benefits, these materials are difficult to investigate using conventional techniques.

In this CAREER project, the principal investigator introduces nitrogen vacancy centers in diamond to achieve nanoscale quantum sensing and imaging of antiferromagnetic insulators. This technique provides a new perspective to reveal emergent antiferromagnetic spin transport and dynamic behaviors. This research project is integrated with education and outreach plan that promotes the participation of underrepresented minority students into science and technology careers as well as public access to some of the most exciting developments at the forefront of materials science research.

Technical Abstract:

Antiferromagnetic materials with exchange-enhanced magnon band gaps and vanishing net magnetization exhibit a wide range of exotic, unintuitive, and technically interesting phenomena. Examples include topologically protected magnetic textures, long-range spin transport, ultrafast magnetic switching, magnon Bose-Einstein condensation, and many others.

Successful application of antiferromagnetic materials to functional spintronic devices requires a comprehensive understanding of these emergent material properties, which remains challenging in the current state-of-the-art. Here, the principal investigator employs nitrogen vacancy centers, optically active atomic spin defects in diamond, to perform quantum sensing and imaging of the local spin behaviors of antiferromagnetic insulators at the nanometer length scale.

Exploiting the unprecedented field sensitivity and spatial resolution of nitrogen vacancy centers, the research team aims to reveal the fundamental mechanisms governing the intrinsic spin diffusion and Néel order switching in antiferromagnets. Taking advantage of the dipole-dipole interaction between antiferromagnetic magnons and nitrogen vacancy centers, the “stretch” goal of this project is to develop antiferromagnet-based hybrid systems for next-generation quantum information technologies.

The proposed research is expected to make important contributions to the burgeoning field of “antiferromagnetic spintronics”. By developing cutting-edge quantum sensing and imaging techniques and demonstrating their operation in an ambient environment, the project provides a versatile measurement platform which can extend naturally to many other interesting magnetic systems and benefits the community in the long run by influencing future quantum sensing technologies.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.