Imaging stress and magnetism at high pressures using a nanoscale quantum sensor

Abstract

Pressure alters the physical, chemical, and electronic properties of matter. The diamond anvil cell enables tabletop experiments to investigate a diverse landscape of high-pressure phenomena. In this work, we introduce and use a nanoscale sensing platform that integrates nitrogen-vacancy (NV) color centers directly into the culet of diamond anvils. We demonstrate the versatility of this platform by performing diffraction-limited imaging of both stress fields and magnetism as a function of pressure and temperature. We quantify all normal and shear stress components and demonstrate vector magnetic field imaging, enabling measurement of the pressure-driven α ↔ ϵ phase transition in iron and the complex pressure-temperature phase diagram of gadolinium. A complementary NV-sensing modality using noise spectroscopy enables the characterization of phase transitions even in the absence of static magnetic signatures.