Microscopic studies on thin film superconductors play an important role for probing non-equilibrium phase transitions and revealing dynamics at the nanoscale. However, magnetic sensors with nanometer scale spatial and picosecond temporal resolution are essential for exploring these. Here, we present an all-optical, microwave-free method, that utilizes the negatively charged nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond as a non-invasive quantum sensor and enables the spatial detection of the Meissner state in a superconducting thin film. We place an NV implanted diamond membrane on a superconducting LSCO thin film. The strong B-field dependence of the NV photoluminescence (PL) allows us to investigate the Meissner screening in LSCO under an externally applied magnetic field in a non-resonant manner.
@article{arxiv.2101.04571,
title = {All-Optical and Microwave-Free Detection of Meissner Screening using Nitrogen-Vacancy Centers in Diamond},
author = {D. Paone and D. Pinto and G. Kim and L. Feng and M-J. Kim and R. Stöhr and A. Singha and S. Kaiser and G. Logvenov and B. Keimer and J. Wrachtrup and K. Kern},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2101.04571},
year = {2021}
}