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arXiv · 2505.07350

All-optical electric field sensing with nanodiamond-doped polymer thin films

Roy Styles·Mengke Han·Toon Goris·James Partridge·Brett C. Johnson·Blanca del Rosal·Amanda N. Abraham·Heike Ebendorff-Heidepriem·Brant C. Gibson·Nikolai Dontschuk·Jean-Philippe Tetienne·Philipp Reineck
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Abstract

The nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center is a photoluminescent defect in diamond that exists in different charge states, NV$^-$ and NV$^0$, that are sensitive to the NV's nanoscale environment. Here, we show that photoluminescence (PL) from NV centers in fluorescent nanodiamonds (FNDs) can be employed for all-optical voltage sensing based on electric field-induced NV charge state modulation. More than 95% of FNDs integrated into a capacitor device show a transient increase in NV$^-$ PL intensity of up to 31% within 0.1 ms after application of an external voltage, accompanied by a simultaneous decrease in NV$^0$ PL. The change in NV$^-$ PL increases with increasing applied voltage from 0 to 100 V, corresponding to an electric field of 0 to 625 kV cm$^ {-1}$ in our devices. The electric field sensitivity of a single FND is 19 V cm$^{-1}$ Hz$^ {-1/2}$. We investigate the NV charge state photodynamics on the millisecond timescale and find that the change in NV PL strongly depends on the rate of photoexcitation. We propose a model that qualitatively explains the observed changes in NV PL based on an electric field-induced redistribution of photoexcited electrons from substitutional nitrogen defects to NV centers, leading to a transient conversion of NV$^0$ to NV$^-$ centers upon application of an external voltage. Our results contribute to the development of FNDs as reliable, all-optical, nanoscale electric field sensors in solid-state systems.

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Roy Styles, Mengke Han, Toon Goris, James Partridge, Brett C. Johnson, Blanca del Rosal, Amanda N. Abraham, Heike Ebendorff-Heidepriem, Brant C. Gibson, Nikolai Dontschuk, Jean-Philippe Tetienne, Philipp Reineck. 2025-06-17. All-optical electric field sensing with nanodiamond-doped polymer thin films. https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.202512068

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