In another experiment, the researchers used their array of NV sensors to capture a magnetic "snapshot" of iron and gadolinium.
Iron and gadolinium are magnetic metals. Scientists have long known that compressing iron and gadolinium can alter them from a magnetic phase to a nonmagnetic phase, an outcome of what scientists call a "pressure-induced phase transition." In the case of iron, the researchers directly imaged this transition by measuring the depletion of the magnetic field generated by a micron-size (or one millionth of a meter) bead of iron inside the high-pressure chamber.
In the case of gadolinium, the researchers took a different approach. In particular, the electrons inside gadolinium "happily whiz around in random directions," and this chaotic "mosh pit" of electrons generates a fluctuating magnetic field that the NV sensor can measure, Hsieh said.
The researchers noted that the NV center sensors can flip into different magnetic quantum states in the presence of magnetic fluctuations, much like how a compass needle spins in different directions when you wave a bar magnet near it.
So they postulated that by timing how long it took for the NV centers to flip from one magnetic state to another, they could characterize the gadolinium's magnetic phase by measuring the magnetic "noise" emanating from the gadolinium electrons' motion.
They found that when gadolinium is in a non-magnetic phase, its electrons are subdued, and its magnetic field fluctuations hence are weak. Subsequently, the NV sensors stay in a single magnetic quantum state for a long while - nearly a hundred microseconds.
Conversely, when the gadolinium sample changed to a magnetic phase, the electrons moved around rapidly, causing the nearby NV sensor to swiftly flip to another magnetic quantum state.
This sudden change provided clear evidence that gadolinium had entered a different magnetic phase, Hsieh said, adding that their technique allowed them to pinpoint magnetic properties across the sample with submicron precision as opposed to averaging over the entire high-pressure chamber as in previous studies.
The researchers hope that this "noise spectroscopy" technique will provide scientists with a new tool for exploring phases of magnetic matter that can be used as the foundation for smaller, faster, and cheaper ways of storing and processing data through next-generation ultrafast spintronic devices.