CAREER: Probing Antiferromagnetic Spintronics with Nitrogen-Vacancy Centers in Diamond

非技术摘要：反铁磁体是一种先进材料，在科学上具有吸引力，在技术上具有重要意义。它们具有很有前途的特性，可以为开发下一代信息技术带来新的功能，如高密度、超快的数据处理速度。尽管它们有潜在的好处，但这些材料很难用传统技术进行研究。在这个职业项目中，首席研究员在钻石中引入氮空位中心，以实现反铁磁绝缘体的纳米级量子传感和成像。这一技术为揭示反铁磁自旋输运和动力学行为提供了一个新的视角。这项研究项目与教育和推广计划相结合，旨在促进未被充分代表的少数族裔学生参与科学和技术事业，并使公众能够接触到材料科学研究前沿的一些最令人兴奋的发展。技术摘要：具有交换增强的磁振子带隙和消失的净磁化的反铁磁性材料展示了广泛的奇异、非直观和技术上有趣的现象。例子包括拓扑保护的磁性织构、远程自旋输运、超快磁开关、磁振子玻色-爱因斯坦凝聚等等。成功地将反铁磁性材料应用于功能自旋电子器件需要全面了解这些新出现的材料特性，这在当前的最先进水平仍然具有挑战性。在这里，主要的研究人员利用氮空位中心，即钻石中光学活性的原子自旋缺陷，在纳米尺度上对反铁磁绝缘体的局部自旋行为进行量子传感和成像。利用氮空位中心前所未有的场敏感性和空间分辨率，该研究小组旨在揭示控制反铁磁体中本征自旋扩散和Néel有序转换的基本机制。利用反铁磁磁子和氮空位中心之间的偶极-偶极相互作用，该项目的目标是为下一代量子信息技术开发基于反铁磁体的混合系统。这项研究有望为“反铁磁性自旋电子学”这一新兴领域做出重要贡献。通过开发尖端的量子传感和成像技术并展示它们在环境中的操作，该项目提供了一个多功能的测量平台，可以自然地扩展到许多其他有趣的磁系统，并通过影响未来的量子传感技术使社区长期受益。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Non-Technical Abstract:Antiferromagnets are advanced materials that are scientifically intriguing and technologically important. They have promising properties to bring new functionalities for developing next-generation information technologies, such as high-densities, ultrafast data processing speeds. Despite their potential benefits, these materials are difficult to investigate using conventional techniques. In this CAREER project, the principal investigator introduces nitrogen vacancy centers in diamond to achieve nanoscale quantum sensing and imaging of antiferromagnetic insulators. This technique provides a new perspective to reveal emergent antiferromagnetic spin transport and dynamic behaviors. This research project is integrated with education and outreach plan that promotes the participation of underrepresented minority students into science and technology careers as well as public access to some of the most exciting developments at the forefront of materials science research.Technical Abstract:Antiferromagnetic materials with exchange-enhanced magnon band gaps and vanishing net magnetization exhibit a wide range of exotic, unintuitive, and technically interesting phenomena. Examples include topologically protected magnetic textures, long-range spin transport, ultrafast magnetic switching, magnon Bose-Einstein condensation, and many others. Successful application of antiferromagnetic materials to functional spintronic devices requires a comprehensive understanding of these emergent material properties, which remains challenging in the current state-of-the-art. Here, the principal investigator employs nitrogen vacancy centers, optically active atomic spin defects in diamond, to perform quantum sensing and imaging of the local spin behaviors of antiferromagnetic insulators at the nanometer length scale. Exploiting the unprecedented field sensitivity and spatial resolution of nitrogen vacancy centers, the research team aims to reveal the fundamental mechanisms governing the intrinsic spin diffusion and Néel order switching in antiferromagnets. Taking advantage of the dipole-dipole interaction between antiferromagnetic magnons and nitrogen vacancy centers, the “stretch” goal of this project is to develop antiferromagnet-based hybrid systems for next-generation quantum information technologies. The proposed research is expected to make important contributions to the burgeoning field of “antiferromagnetic spintronics”. By developing cutting-edge quantum sensing and imaging techniques and demonstrating their operation in an ambient environment, the project provides a versatile measurement platform which can extend naturally to many other interesting magnetic systems and benefits the community in the long run by influencing future quantum sensing technologies.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.