title: Modulation of nitrogen vacancy charge state and fluorescence in nanodiamonds using electrochemical potential.
abstract: The negatively charged nitrogen vacancy (NV(-)) center in diamond has attracted strong interest for a wide range of sensing and quantum information processing applications. To this end, recent work has focused on controlling the NV charge state, whose stability strongly depends on its electrostatic environment. Here, we demonstrate that the charge state and fluorescence dynamics of single NV centers in nanodiamonds with different surface terminations can be controlled by an externally applied potential difference in an electrochemical cell. The voltage dependence of the NV charge state can be used to stabilize the NV(-) state for spin-based sensing protocols and provides a method of charge state-dependent fluorescence sensing of electrochemical potentials. We detect clear NV fluorescence modulation for voltage changes down to 100 mV, with a single NV and down to 20 mV with multiple NV centers in a wide-field imaging mode. These results suggest that NV centers in nanodiamonds could enable parallel optical detection of biologically relevant electrochemical potentials.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139; Department of Electrical Engineering, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027;
authors.forename: Sinan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Karaveli
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139; Diamond Nanotechnologies, Inc., Boston, MA 02134;
authors.forename: Ophir
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Gaathon
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139; Diamond Nanotechnologies, Inc., Boston, MA 02134; Department of Chemistry, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027;
authors.forename: Abraham
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Wolcott
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139;
authors.forename: Reyu
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sakakibara
authors.affiliation: MIT Media Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139; McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139; Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139; Department of Biological Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139.
authors.forename: Or A
authors.initials: OA
authors.lastname: Shemesh
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027;
authors.forename: Darcy S
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Peterka
authors.affiliation: MIT Media Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139; McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139; Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139; Department of Biological Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139.
authors.forename: Edward S
authors.initials: ES
authors.lastname: Boyden
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027;
authors.forename: Jonathan S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Owen
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027;
authors.forename: Rafael
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Yuste
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139; englund@mit.edu.
authors.forename: Dirk
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Englund
mesh_terms: D004553:Electric Conductivity; D055664:Electrochemical Techniques; D005453:Fluorescence; D058612:Nanodiamonds / Q000737:chemistry*; D009584:Nitrogen / Q000737:chemistry*; D055672:Static Electricity
chemical_list: D058612:Nanodiamonds; D009584:Nitrogen
keywords: fluorescence microscopy; nanodiamond; nitrogen vacancy center; voltage indicator; voltage sensing