Wide-Field Imaging of Superconductor Vortices with Electron Spins in Diamond

The mechanism behind high-Tc superconductivity still is not fully understood, yet is key in the quest for room-temperature superconductors. Recently developed techniques based on color centers in diamond offer fresh possibilities to study magnetism in high-Tc superconductors (HTSs). The authors' approach to imaging vortices in an HTS using N-V centers allows quantitative measurement of the magnetic field vector at high bandwidth over a wide temperature range, which was not possible before, as the distance between sample and sensor was too large. In principle this approach is also suitable for studying a variety of other systems, including magnetic domains and skyrmions.