Scanning X-ray Diffraction Microscopy for Diamond Quantum Sensing

Abstract

Understanding nano- and micro-scale crystal strain in CVD diamond is crucial to the advancement of diamond quantum technologies. In particular, the presence of such strain and its characterization present a challenge to diamond-based quantum sensing and information applications -- as well as for future dark matter detectors where directional information of incoming particles is encoded in crystal strain. Here, we exploit nanofocused scanning X-ray diffraction microscopy to quantitatively measure crystal deformation from defects in diamond with high spatial and strain resolution. Combining information from multiple Bragg angles allows stereoscopic three-dimensional modeling of strain feature geometry; the diffraction results are validated via comparison to optical measurements of the strain tensor based on spin-state-dependent spectroscopy of ensembles of nitrogen vacancy (NV) centers in the diamond. Our results demonstrate both strain and spatial resolution sufficient for directional detection of dark matter via X-ray measurement of crystal strain, and provide a promising tool for diamond growth analysis and improvement of defect-based sensing.

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Cited by in corpus (3)

• High-precision mapping of diamond crystal strain using quantum interferometry
• Mineral Detection of Neutrinos and Dark Matter. A Whitepaper
• Directional Detection of Dark Matter Using Solid-State Quantum Sensing