Integrated NV (Nitrogen Vacancy) Vector Magnetometer in Real-time Utilizing Frequency-hopping Method

Nitrogen Vacancy (NV) centers in Diamond exhibits the advantages of high resolution, high sensitivity, and error-free sensing in the field of vector field detection, which bolstering the potential of NV centers magnetometers for practical applications. However, most of the NV centers magnetometers is still limited by the constraints imposed by bulky laboratory instruments, and the method of sweeping frequency points to detect resonance frequencies can also lead to slower detection of vector magnetic field (MF). To address these limitations, enhancing the portability of integrated vector magnetometers, we made an integrated vector magnetometer based on NV centers and proposed a microwave (MW) frequency-hopping method to realize vector MF triaxial real-time (400 ms) detection. The experimental results indicate that the magnetometer dynamic range is ± 130 μT along the x-axis, ± 110 μT along the y-axis, and ± 260 μT along the z-axis, with the minimum standard deviation of vector MF measurements across all three axes being 1.84 nT. The frequency-hopping method is more than 87 times faster than the sweeping method and the size of the integrated NV magnetometer fit in the palm of the hand to portable usage. This proposal, which accomplishes vector MF rapidly measure using a self-made NV centers magnetometer, has potential applications in fields such as medical diagnosis, new energy battery testing and geomagnetic detection.