Continuous-wave AC magnetometry up to hundreds of megahertz using nitrogen-vacancy centers under a strong transverse magnetic field
Abstract
Nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond are promising quantum sensors for AC magnetic fields. However, conventional dynamical-decoupling-based magnetometry becomes technically demanding at high frequencies because of the requirement for increasingly short and high-power microwave pulses. This paper describes an AC magnetometry technique based on continuous-wave optically detected magnetic resonance (CW-ODMR) measurements, which enables the detection of signals in the hundred-MHz range. By applying a strong static magnetic field transverse to the NV axis, the energy separation between the relevant electron-spin states was tuned and resonantly coupled with the target radiofrequency (RF) magnetic field, thereby forming RF-dressed states. Unlike pulsed dynamical-decoupling schemes, this approach does not require high-power microwave pulse sequences. The key feature of our method is that the detectable frequency can be tuned by controlling the bias magnetic field strength. Using this methodology, we have experimentally achieved the frequency-tunable detection of AC magnetic fields from 14.4-632 MHz. The sensitivity was 0.558 uT/Hz^(0.5) at 14.4 MHz and 24.4 uT/Hz^(0.5) at 632 MHz. We characterized the field-dependent ODMR contrast and linewidth, and found that their degradation at large transverse fields is a important factor limiting the high-frequency sensitivity. These results establish a simple CW-ODMR approach for widely tunable RF magnetic-field sensing without high-power pulsed spin control.
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BibTeX
@misc{okaniwa2026continuouswave,
title = {{Continuous-wave AC magnetometry up to hundreds of megahertz using nitrogen-vacancy centers under a strong transverse magnetic field}},
author = {Ryusei Okaniwa and Rui Suzuki and Yuichiro Matsuzaki and Norio Tokuda and Junko Ishi-Hayase},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.13153},
eprint = {2610.13153},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.13153},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Continuous-wave AC magnetometry up to hundreds of megahertz using nitrogen-vacancy centers under a strong transverse magnetic field
AU - Ryusei Okaniwa
AU - Rui Suzuki
AU - Yuichiro Matsuzaki
AU - Norio Tokuda
AU - Junko Ishi-Hayase
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/09
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.13153
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.13153
AB - Nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond are promising quantum sensors for AC magnetic fields. However, conventional dynamical-decoupling-based magnetometry becomes technically demanding at high frequencies because of the requirement for increasingly short and high-power microwave pulses. This paper describes an AC magnetometry technique based on continuous-wave optically detected magnetic resonance (CW-ODMR) measurements, which enables the detection of signals in the hundred-MHz range. By applying a strong static magnetic field transverse to the NV axis, the energy separation between the relevant electron-spin states was tuned and resonantly coupled with the target radiofrequency (RF) magnetic field, thereby forming RF-dressed states. Unlike pulsed dynamical-decoupling schemes, this approach does not require high-power microwave pulse sequences. The key feature of our method is that the detectable frequency can be tuned by controlling the bias magnetic field strength. Using this methodology, we have experimentally achieved the frequency-tunable detection of AC magnetic fields from 14.4-632 MHz. The sensitivity was 0.558 uT/Hz^(0.5) at 14.4 MHz and 24.4 uT/Hz^(0.5) at 632 MHz. We characterized the field-dependent ODMR contrast and linewidth, and found that their degradation at large transverse fields is a important factor limiting the high-frequency sensitivity. These results establish a simple CW-ODMR approach for widely tunable RF magnetic-field sensing without high-power pulsed spin control.
ER -