Abstract

The detection of tiny magnetic fields emanating for example from small number of nuclear and electronic spins in biological environments holds the promise for a wide variety of applications. The presence of environmental noise presents a key obstacle on the path towards this goal. Considering a single colour center in diamond I will explain how resonance conditions can be exploited to achieve the dual of goal of sensing minute fields while protecting against environmental noise. Connections to quantum effects in biology will be drawn where similar resonance conditions are being exploited to achieve optimal performance and novel function. Finally I will proceed to explain how these tools can be used to construct a novel room temperature quantum simulator on the basis of nuclear or electron spin arrays in diamond.

© 2013 Optical Society of America