The nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centre, a naturally occurring impurity in diamond crystals, has a unique, long-lived single-electron spin state that can be controlled and detected optically. This paper demonstrates the first steps towards a sensitive, high-resolution imaging technique in which these diamond spins are exploited. It is shown that the location of single NV spins can be determined with nanometre scale resolution, at ambient conditions, using magneto-optical spin detection.
- Gopalakrishnan Balasubramanian
- I. Y. Chan
- Jörg Wrachtrup
