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Bryan Myers
Graduate Researcher
E-mail: bmyers@physics.ucsb.edu
Lab: Broida 4209

    I am working with several other students in our group to develop a versatile tool to sense weak magnetic fields by the optical detection of quantum spin coherence in nitrogen-vacancy (NV) defect centers in diamond. The far-reaching prospects for a such a diamond magnetometer (DM) are fascinating, from condensed matter to biology, due to the unique potential of combined nanoscale resolution, sensitivity to low fields, and variable temperature operation (mK to well above room-T).

    The parallel materials project I am involved in is growing thin film (<150 nm) single-crystal diamond with our in-house plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition system dedicated to diamond growth. We introduce nitrogen-15 gas at controlled timing and duration to form NV centers at specific depths in isotopically pure (carbon-12) diamond. These shallow NVs exhibit long consistent spin coherence times and are a nice candidate for sensing and imaging external electronic or nuclear spins close to the diamond surface.

    For characterization I am using scanning magnetic field gradient techniques (atomic force microscope) with NV photoluminescence detection (confocal microscope) to distinguish NV center properties at the various nanoscale depths in these nitrogen delta-doped diamonds. We will use this AFM/confocal configuration for a variety of other diamond experiments.