Moving Towards NMR at High Pressures

Graduate students Zhipan (Zeppelin) Wang, Chris McPherson and Rashad Kadado recently published their work on AC detection of magnetic fields in a diamond anvil cell using NV center defects in diamond. NV centers have attracted interest as both DC and AC field sensors, and have been utilized for high resolution NMR of solutions at room temperature. There is great interest in adapting this technology to high pressures, and their work in a diamond anvil cell makes an important step in this direction. This work required a new approach utilizing lithographically-deposited conducting films to insert microwave fields, and examined the sensitivity of the approach at pressured up to 6 GPa.