Solid-state spin systems including nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond constitute an increasingly favored quantum sensing platform. However, present NV ensemble devices exhibit sensitivities orders of magnitude away from theoretical limits. The sensitivity shortfall both handicaps existing implementations and curtails the envisioned application space. This review analyzes present and proposed approaches to enhance the sensitivity of broadband ensemble-NV-diamond magnetometers. Improvements to the spin dephasing time, the readout fidelity, and the host diamond material properties are identified as the most promising avenues and are investigated extensively. Our analysis of sensitivity optimization establishes a foundation to stimulate development of new techniques for enhancing solid-state sensor performance.
@article{arxiv.1903.08176,
title = {Sensitivity Optimization for NV-Diamond Magnetometry},
author = {John F. Barry and Jennifer M. Schloss and Erik Bauch and Matthew J. Turner and Connor A. Hart and Linh M. Pham and Ronald L. Walsworth},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1903.08176},
year = {2020}
}