Toward Quantitative Bio-sensing with Nitrogen–Vacancy Center in Diamond

Abstract

The long-dreamed-of capability of monitoring the molecular machinery in living systems has not been realized yet, mainly due to the technical limitations of current sensing technologies. However, recently emerging quantum sensors are showing great promise for molecular detection and imaging. One of such sensing qubits is the nitrogen−vacancy (NV) center, a photoluminescent impurity in a diamond lattice with unique roomtemperature optical and spin properties. This atomic-sized quantum emitter has the ability to quantitatively measure nanoscale electromagnetic fields via optical means at ambient conditions. Moreover, the unlimited photostability of NV centers, combined with the excellent diamond biocompatibility and the possibility of diamond nanoparticles internalization into the living cells, makes NV-based sensors one of the most promising and versatile platforms for various life-science applications. In this review, we will summarize the latest developments of NV-based quantum sensing with a focus on biomedical applications, including measurements of magnetic biomaterials, intracellular temperature, localized physiological species, action potentials, and electronic and nuclear spins. We will also outline the main unresolved challenges and provide future perspectives of many promising aspects of NV-based bio-sensing.

Path integral framework for characterizing and controlling decoherence induced by non-stationary environments on a quantum probe

“…This is a paradigmatic model for a quantum probe that interacts with a noise during a finite duration of time. Examples of this can be moving charges or particles that pass near to quantum sensor [76,138,139,[142][143][144], forces or interactions detected by a moving cantilever or tip that contains the sensor [77,129,145], and biomedical applications as the detection of neuronal activity [75,76,78].…”

“…Moreover, we provide simple interpretations of non-stationary noise spectrums and time-dependent correlations for a broad subclass of local-in-time noises and simple criteria to distinguish Markovian from non-Markovian noise dynamics. We also show how to implement our framework with two paradigmatic nonstationary noises, one derived from a quenched environment where excitations suddenly start spreading over a large number of degrees of freedom [13,50,56,64,74] and the other from a noise that acts near to a point in time [75][76][77][78]. Overall we introduce a tool to characterize and control decoherence effects of out-of-equilibrium environments providing avenues of quantum information processing for the deployment of quantum technologies.…”

Nanodiamonds based optical-fiber quantum probe for magnetic field and biological sensing

“…Employing the nanodiamonds (NDs) containing NV even allows us to measure the intracellular thermal conductivity in situ 4 , which is almost impossible for the traditional sensors. Recently, NV centers had also been proved as a breakthrough tool in the biomedical sensing, though currently it is in its infancy 5 . Utilizing the microwave (MW) or magnetic-field-tunable emission intensity of NV centers and the frequency-domain analysis method, the sensitivity of lateral flow immunoassays succeeded to be improved to an unprecedented level 6 , enabling the single-copy detection of HIV-1 RNA 7 .…”

Robust spin relaxometry with fast adaptive Bayesian estimation

“…One robust and powerful approach to sensing high-frequency magnetic noise is relaxometry, which measures the spin lifetime to detect the magnetic noise spectral density at the spin transition frequency [4,5]. Such measurements are particularly promising probes of biological [6] and condensed-matter systems [7], enabling observations of free radicals in individual mitochondria [8], antiferromagnetic textures [9], electronphonon interactions in graphene [10], spin transfer effects in magnetic insulators [11] and / or metals [12], magnon dynamics [13] and more.…”