Quantum sensing of electric field distributions of liquid electrolytes with NV-centers in nanodiamonds

Abstract

To use batteries as large-scale energy storage systems it is necessary to measure and understand their degradation \textit{in-situ} and \textit{in-operando}. As a battery's degradation is often the result of molecular processes inside the electrolyte, a sensing platform which allows to measure the ions with a high spatial resolution is needed. Primary candidates for such a platform are NV-centers in diamonds. We propose to use a single NV-center to deduce the electric field distribution generated by the ions inside the electrolyte through microwave pulse sequences. We show that the electric field can be reconstructed with great accuracy by using a protocol which includes different variations of the Free Induction Decay to obtain the mean electric field components and a modified Hahn-echo pulse sequence to measure the electric field's standard deviation ${\sigma }_E$. From a semi-analytical ansatz we find that for a lithium ion battery there is a direct relationship between ${\sigma }_E$ and the ionic concentration. Our results show that it is therefore possible to use NV-centers as sensors to measure both the electric field distribution and the local ionic concentration inside electrolytes.

References in corpus (7)

• QuTiP 2: A Python framework for the dynamics of open quantum systems
• Nuclear spin pair coherence in diamond for atomic scale magnetometry
• Long Spin Coherence Times of Nitrogen Vacancy Centres in Milled Nanodiamonds
• Strong driving of a single spin using arbitrarily polarized fields
• Construction and operation of a tabletop system for nanoscale magnetometry with single nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond
• Spin-strain coupling in nanodiamonds
• Sensing electrochemical signals using a nitrogen-vacancy center in diamond

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Long Spin Coherence and Relaxation Times in Nanodiamonds Milled from Polycrystalline ${}^{12}$C Diamond
• Optimizing SPION Labeling for Single-Cell Magnetic Microscopy
• A Compact Incubation Platform for Long-Term Cultivation of Biological Samples for Nitrogen-Vacancy Center Widefield Microscopy
• Exploring electric field sensing for solid-state nanopores