skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Reaching the quantum limit of sensitivity in electron spin resonance

Journal Article · · Nature Nanotechnology
 [1];  [2]; ORCiD logo [1];  [3];  [4];  [2];  [5];  [5];  [6];  [1];  [1];  [7];  [7];  [2];  [1]
  1. Univ. Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette (France). Quantronics Group, SPEC, CEA, CNR
  2. University College London (United Kingdom). London Centre for Nanotechnology
  3. Univ. Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette (France). Quantronics Group, SPEC, CEA, CNR; Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan (Israel). Quantum Nanoelectronics Laboratory, BINA
  4. Univ. Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette (France). Quantronics Group, SPEC, CEA, CNR; Institute of Electronics Microelectronics and Nanotechnology. ISEN Department
  5. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). Accelerator Technology and Applied Physics Division
  6. Simon Fraser University, Burnaby (British Columbia). Department of Physics
  7. Aarhus University (Denmark). Department of Physics and Astronomy

The detection and characterization of paramagnetic species by electron spin resonance (ESR) spectroscopy is widely used throughout chemistry, biology and materials science, from in vivo imaging to distance measurements in spin-labelled proteins. ESR relies on the inductive detection of microwave signals emitted by the spins into a coupled microwave resonator during their Larmor precession. However, such signals can be very small, prohibiting the application of ESR at the nanoscale (for example, at the single-cell level or on individual nanoparticles). Here in this work, using a Josephson parametric microwave amplifier combined with high-quality-factor superconducting microresonators cooled at millikelvin temperatures, we improve the state-of-the-art sensitivity of inductive ESR detection by nearly four orders of magnitude. We demonstrate the detection of 1,700 bismuth donor spins in silicon within a single Hahn echo with unit signal-to-noise ratio, reduced to 150 spins by averaging a single Carr-Purcell-Meiboom-Gill sequence. This unprecedented sensitivity reaches the limit set by quantum fluctuations of the electromagnetic field instead of thermal or technical noise, which constitutes a novel regime for magnetic resonance. In conclusion, the detection volume of our resonator is ~0.02nl, and our approach can be readily scaled down further to improve sensitivity, providing a new versatile toolbox for ESR at the nanoscale.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Fusion Energy Sciences (FES)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-05CH11231
OSTI ID:
1379135
Journal Information:
Nature Nanotechnology, Vol. 11, Issue 3; ISSN 1748-3387
Publisher:
Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 118 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (41)

Electrical activation and electron spin resonance measurements of implanted bismuth in isotopically enriched silicon-28 journal April 2012
Amplification and squeezing of quantum noise with a tunable Josephson metamaterial journal October 2008
Optical detection of magnetic resonance in a single molecule journal May 1993
Electroelastic Hyperfine Tuning of Phosphorus Donors in Silicon journal January 2011
Planar microresonators for EPR experiments journal August 2005
The initialization and manipulation of quantum information stored in silicon by bismuth dopants journal August 2010
Observation of Quantum Jumps in a Superconducting Artificial Atom journal March 2011
In vivo EPR detection and imaging of endogenous nitric oxide in lipopolysaccharide-treated mice journal August 1996
Spin Echoes journal November 1950
Single-shot readout of an electron spin in silicon journal September 2010
High-gain weakly nonlinear flux-modulated Josephson parametric amplifier using a SQUID array journal June 2014
Nanomechanical motion measured with an imprecision below that at the standard quantum limit journal November 2009
Orthogonal Spin Labeling and Gd(III)–Nitroxide Distance Measurements on Bacteriophage T4-Lysozyme journal March 2013
Induction-detection electron spin resonance with spin sensitivity of a few tens of spins journal February 2015
Phase-preserving amplification near the quantum limit with a Josephson ring modulator journal May 2010
Lock-in detection for pulsed electrically detected magnetic resonance journal April 2012
Superconducting microstrip resonator for pulsed ESR of thin films journal May 2013
Probing Dynamics of an Electron-Spin Ensemble via a Superconducting Resonator journal February 2013
Fast Charge Sensing of a Cavity-Coupled Double Quantum Dot Using a Josephson Parametric Amplifier journal July 2015
Microstrip resonators for electron‐spin resonance journal July 1991
Fast, low-power manipulation of spin ensembles in superconducting microresonators journal June 2014
Direct observation of the precession of individual paramagnetic spins on oxidized silicon surfaces journal May 1989
Atomic clock transitions in silicon-based spin qubits journal June 2013
Increasing sensitivity of pulse EPR experiments using echo train detection schemes journal November 2013
Mechanical detection of magnetic resonance journal December 1992
Electron Spin Resonance Experiments on Donors in Silicon. I. Electronic Structure of Donors by the Electron Nuclear Double Resonance Technique journal June 1959
Subnanometre resolution in three-dimensional magnetic resonance imaging of individual dark spins journal March 2014
Quantum limits on noise in linear amplifiers journal October 1982
Planar microresonators for EPR experiments text January 2005
Subnanometre resolution in three-dimensional magnetic resonance imaging of individual dark spins text January 2014
Spin Echoes journal December 1950
Amplification and squeezing of quantum noise with a tunable Josephson metamaterial text January 2008
Phase preserving amplification near the quantum limit with a Josephson Ring Modulator text January 2009
Dispersive magnetometry with a quantum limited SQUID parametric amplifier text January 2010
Electrical activation and electron spin resonance measurements of implanted bismuth in isotopically enriched silicon-28 text January 2012
Probing dynamics of an electron-spin ensemble via a superconducting resonator text January 2012
Atomic clock transitions in silicon-based spin qubits text January 2013
Fast charge sensing of a cavity-coupled double quantum dot using a Josephson parametric amplifier text January 2015
Observation of quantum jumps in a superconducting artificial atom text January 2010
Lock-in detection for pulsed electrically detected magnetic resonance text January 2011
Sub-nanometer resolution in three-dimensional magnetic-resonance imaging of individual dark spins text January 2014

Cited By (45)

Nonlinear Properties of Supercurrent-Carrying Single- and Multi-Layer Thin-Film Superconductors journal January 2020
Irradiation of materials with short, intense ion pulses at NDCX-II journal May 2017
Controlling spin relaxation with a cavity journal February 2016
All-electric control of donor nuclear spin qubits in silicon journal August 2017
Dynamical coupling between a nuclear spin ensemble and electromechanical phonons journal August 2018
Simultaneous coherence enhancement of optical and microwave transitions in solid-state electronic spins journal July 2018
Superradiant emission from colour centres in diamond journal September 2018
Electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy using a single artificial atom journal March 2019
Coupling molecular spin centers to microwave planar resonators: towards integration of molecular qubits in quantum circuits journal January 2016
Recent progress in the electron paramagnetic resonance study of polymers journal January 2018
Vanadyl spin qubit 2D arrays and their integration on superconducting resonators journal January 2020
Inductive-detection electron-spin resonance spectroscopy with 65 spins/ Hz sensitivity journal November 2017
Sensitive spin detection using an on-chip SQUID-waveguide resonator journal November 2017
High precision single qubit tuning via thermo-magnetic field control journal March 2018
Magnetic field dependent microwave losses in superconducting niobium microstrip resonators journal July 2018
Advanced surface resonators for electron spin resonance of single microcrystals journal December 2018
Frequency-tunable high- Q superconducting resonators via wireless control of nonlinear kinetic inductance journal May 2019
Engineering nonlinear response of superconducting niobium microstrip resonators via aluminum cladding journal November 2019
Tuning high-Q superconducting resonators by magnetic field reorientation journal December 2019
Quantum information processing with superconducting circuits: a review journal September 2017
A hybrid-systems approach to spin squeezing using a highly dissipative ancillary system journal May 2016
Proposal for detecting a single electron spin in a microwave resonator journal February 2017
Coherent Magneto-optomechanical Signal Transduction and Long-Distance Phase-Shift Keying journal September 2019
Identification and time-resolved study of ferrimagnetic spin-wave modes in a microwave cavity in the strong-coupling regime journal January 2020
Observation of Collective Coupling between an Engineered Ensemble of Macroscopic Artificial Atoms and a Superconducting Resonator journal November 2016
Selective Optical Addressing of Nuclear Spins through Superhyperfine Interaction in Rare-Earth Doped Solids journal May 2018
Electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy of Er 3 + : Y 2 SiO 5 using a Josephson bifurcation amplifier: Observation of hyperfine and quadrupole structures journal January 2018
Logical Qubit in a Linear Array of Semiconductor Quantum Dots journal June 2018
Controlling Spin-Orbit Interactions in Silicon Quantum Dots Using Magnetic Field Direction journal May 2019
Nonlinear Properties of Supercurrent-Carrying Single- and Multi-Layer Thin-Film Superconductors text January 2020
Nonlinear Properties of Supercurrent-Carrying Single- and Multi-Layer Thin-Film Superconductors text January 2020
Nonlinear Properties of Supercurrent-Carrying Single- and Multi-Layer Thin-Film Superconductors text January 2020
A hybrid-systems approach to spin squeezing using a highly dissipative ancillary system text January 2015
Strain-induced spin resonance shifts in silicon devices text January 2016
Quantum information processing with superconducting circuits: a review text January 2016
High precision single qubit tuning via thermo-magnetic field control text January 2017
Optimizing the nonlinearity and dissipation of a SNAIL Parametric Amplifier for dynamic range text January 2018
Engineering Nonlinear Response of Superconducting Niobium Microstrip Resonators via Aluminum Cladding text January 2018
Low-impedance superconducting microwave resonators for strong coupling to small magnetic mode volumes text January 2019
Strong Coupling between Microwave Photons and Nanomagnet Magnons text January 2019
Angular dependent micro-ESR characterization of a locally doped Gd3+:Al2O3 system text January 2015
Concepts and Criteria for Blind Quantum Source Separation text January 2016
Controlling spin-orbit interactions in silicon quantum dots using magnetic field direction text January 2018
Storing quantum information in spins and high-sensitivity ESR text January 2019
A microwave resonator integrated on a polymer microfluidic chip text January 2016

Similar Records

Indirectly detected chemical shift correlation NMR spectroscopy in solids under fast magic angle spinning
Thesis/Dissertation · Sat Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 2011 · OSTI ID:1379135

Persistence of slow fluctuations in the overdoped regime of Ba(Fe1-xRhx)2As2 superconductors
Thesis/Dissertation · Fri Apr 15 00:00:00 EDT 2016 · OSTI ID:1379135

Nuclear magnetic resonance evaluation of stroke: a preliminary report
Journal Article · Sat Oct 01 00:00:00 EDT 1983 · Radiology; (United States) · OSTI ID:1379135