Scanning nitrogen-vacancy center magnetometry in large in-plane magnetic fields

Abstract

Scanning magnetometry with nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond has emerged as a powerful microscopy for studying weak stray field patterns with nanometer resolution. Due to the internal crystal anisotropy of the spin defect, however, external bias fields—critical for the study of magnetic materials—must be applied along specific spatial directions. In particular, the most common diamond probes made from {100}-cut diamond only support fields at an angle of θ=55° from the surface normal. In this paper, we report fabrication of scanning diamond probes from {110}-cut diamond where the spin anisotropy axis lies in the scan plane (θ=90°). We show that these probes retain their sensitivity in large in-plane fields and demonstrate scanning magnetometry of the domain pattern of Co–NiO films in applied fields up to 40 mT. Our work extends scanning NV magnetometry to the important class of materials that require large in-plane fields.