Abstract Establishing connections between material impurities and charge transport properties in emerging electronic and quantum materials, such as wide‐bandgap semiconductors, demands new diagnostic methods tailored to these unique systems. Many such materials host optically‐active defect centers which offer a powerful in situ characterization system, but one that typically relies on the weak spin‐electric field coupling to measure electronic phenomena. In this work, charge‐state sensitive optical microscopy is combined with photoelectric detection of an array of nitrogen‐vacancy (NV) centers to directly image the flow of charge carriers inside a diamond optoelectronic device, in 3D and with temporal resolution. Optical control is used to change the charge state of background impurities inside the diamond on‐demand, resulting in drastically different current flow such as filamentary channels nucleating from specific, defective regions of the device. Conducting channels that control carrier flow, key steps toward optically reconfigurable, wide‐bandgap optoelectronics are then engineered using light. This work might be extended to probe other wide‐bandgap semiconductors (SiC, GaN) relevant to present and emerging electronic and quantum technologies.
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Diamond micro-chip for quantum microscopy
The nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond is an increasingly popular quantum sensor for microscopy of electrical current, magnetization, and spins. However, efficient NV–sample integration with a robust, high-quality interface remains an outstanding challenge to realize scalable, high-throughput microscopy. In this work, we characterize a diamond micro-chip (DMC) containing a (111)-oriented NV ensemble and demonstrate its utility for high-resolution quantum microscopy. We perform strain imaging of the DMC and find minimal detrimental strain variation across a field of view of tens of micrometer. We find good ensemble NV spin coherence and optical properties in the DMC, suitable for sensitive magnetometry. We then use the DMC to demonstrate wide-field microscopy of electrical current and show that diffraction-limited quantum microscopy can be achieved. We also demonstrate the deterministic transfer of DMCs with multiple materials of interest for next-generation electronics and spintronics. Lastly, we develop a polymer-based technique for DMC placement. This work establishes the DMC's potential to expand the application of NV quantum microscopy in materials, device, geological, biomedical, and chemical sciences.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2203829
- PAR ID:
- 10609379
- Publisher / Repository:
- American Institute of Physics
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- AVS Quantum Science
- Volume:
- 6
- Issue:
- 4
- ISSN:
- 2639-0213
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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