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Rodgers LVH, Nguyen ST, Cox JH, Zervas K, Yuan Z, Sangtawesin S, Stacey A, Jaye C, Weiland C, Pershin A, Gali A, Thomsen L, Meynell SA, Hughes LB, Jayich ACB, Gui X, Cava RJ, Knowles RR, de Leon NP. Diamond surface functionalization via visible light-driven C-H activation for nanoscale quantum sensing. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2024; 121:e2316032121. [PMID: 38451945 PMCID: PMC10945787 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2316032121] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/14/2023] [Accepted: 01/08/2024] [Indexed: 03/09/2024] Open
Abstract
Nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond are a promising platform for nanoscale NMR sensing. Despite significant progress toward using NV centers to detect and localize nuclear spins down to the single spin level, NV-based spectroscopy of individual, intact, arbitrary target molecules remains elusive. Such sensing requires that target molecules are immobilized within nanometers of NV centers with long spin coherence. The inert nature of diamond typically requires harsh functionalization techniques such as thermal annealing or plasma processing, limiting the scope of functional groups that can be attached to the surface. Solution-phase chemical methods can be readily generalized to install diverse functional groups, but they have not been widely explored for single-crystal diamond surfaces. Moreover, realizing shallow NV centers with long spin coherence times requires highly ordered single-crystal surfaces, and solution-phase functionalization has not yet been shown with such demanding conditions. In this work, we report a versatile strategy to directly functionalize C-H bonds on single-crystal diamond surfaces under ambient conditions using visible light, forming C-F, C-Cl, C-S, and C-N bonds at the surface. This method is compatible with NV centers within 10 nm of the surface with spin coherence times comparable to the state of the art. As a proof-of-principle demonstration, we use shallow ensembles of NV centers to detect nuclear spins from surface-bound functional groups. Our approach to surface functionalization opens the door to deploying NV centers as a tool for chemical sensing and single-molecule spectroscopy.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lila V. H. Rodgers
- Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ08540
| | - Suong T. Nguyen
- Department of Chemistry, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ08540
| | - James H. Cox
- Department of Chemistry, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ08540
| | - Kalliope Zervas
- Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ08540
| | - Zhiyang Yuan
- Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ08540
| | - Sorawis Sangtawesin
- School of Physics, Suranaree University of Technology, Nakhon Ratchasima30000, Thailand
- Center of Excellence in Advanced Functional Materials, Suranaree University of Technology, Nakhon Ratchasima30000, Thailand
| | - Alastair Stacey
- School of Physics, University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC3010, Australia
- School of Science, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC3000, Australia
| | - Cherno Jaye
- Materials Measurement Science Division, Material Measurement Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD20899
| | - Conan Weiland
- Materials Measurement Science Division, Material Measurement Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD20899
| | - Anton Pershin
- HUN-REN Wigner Research Centre for Physics, Institute for Solid State Physics and Optics, BudapestH-1525, Hungary
- MTA-WFK Lendület “Momentum” Semiconductor Nanostructures Research Group, BudapestH-1525, Hungary
| | - Adam Gali
- HUN-REN Wigner Research Centre for Physics, Institute for Solid State Physics and Optics, BudapestH-1525, Hungary
- MTA-WFK Lendület “Momentum” Semiconductor Nanostructures Research Group, BudapestH-1525, Hungary
- Department of Atomic Physics, Institute of Physics, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, BudapestH-1111, Hungary
| | - Lars Thomsen
- Australian Synchrotron, Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, Clayton, VIC3168, Australia
| | - Simon A. Meynell
- Physics Department, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA93106
| | - Lillian B. Hughes
- Materials Department, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA93106
| | | | - Xin Gui
- Department of Chemistry, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ08540
| | - Robert J. Cava
- Department of Chemistry, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ08540
| | | | - Nathalie P. de Leon
- Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ08540
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