Surface NMR using quantum sensors in diamond

Abstract

Characterization of the molecular properties of surfaces under ambient or chemically reactive conditions is a fundamental scientific challenge. Moreover, many traditional analytical techniques used for probing surfaces often lack dynamic or molecular selectivity, which limits their applicability for mechanistic and kinetic studies under realistic chemical conditions. Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) is a widely used technique and would be ideal for probing interfaces due to the molecular information it provides noninvasively. However, it lacks the sensitivity to probe the small number of spins at surfaces. Here, we use nitrogen vacancy (NV) centers in diamond as quantum sensors to optically detect nuclear magnetic resonance signals from chemically modified aluminum oxide surfaces, prepared with atomic layer deposition (ALD). With the surface NV-NMR technique, we are able to monitor in real-time the formation kinetics of a self assembled monolayer (SAM) based on phosphonate anchoring chemistry to the surface. This demonstrates the capability of quantum sensors as a new surface-sensitive tool with sub-monolayer sensitivity for in-situ NMR analysis with the additional advantage of a strongly reduced technical complexity.

References in corpus (4)

• Nanoscale NMR Spectroscopy and Imaging of Multiple Nuclear Species
• Recent developments in MAS DNP-NMR of materials
• Proton magnetic resonance imaging with a nitrogen-vacancy spin sensor
• Imaging mesoscopic nuclear spin noise with a diamond magnetometer

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Biocompatible surface functionalization architecture for a diamond quantum sensor
• Single Nitrogen-Vacancy-NMR of Amine-Functionalized Diamond Surfaces
• The Role of Electrolytes in the Relaxation of Near-Surface Spin Defects in Diamond
• Parallel detection and spatial mapping of large nuclear spin clusters
• Geometry dependence of micron-scale NMR signals on NV-diamond chips
• Using metal-organic frameworks to confine liquid samples for nanoscale NV-NMR
• Dynamical nuclear polarization for dissipation-induced entanglement in NV centers