OSE Dissertation Defense by Mr. Yaser Silani on Femtotesla Magnetometry and Nanoscale Imaging with Color Centers in Diamond

Departmental News

Mr. Yaser Silani

Posted: March 24, 2023

Date: Friday, March 31, 2023 

Time:  12:15 PM

Location: PAIS, Room 3205 and Zoom

Committee:
Dr. Victor Acosta, UNM P&A (Committee Chair)
Dr. Keith Lidke, UNM P&A
Dr. Andrew Shreve, UNM CBE
Dr. James Thomas, UNM P&A

Abstract:
Two particularly interesting color centers in diamond are the silicon vacancy (SiV) and the nitrogen vacancy (NV), and in recent years, they have been used in many applications from imaging and sensing to quantum computing. In the first part of my talk, I will present some results showing why the diamond SiV centers are promising fluorescent probes for nanoscale imaging applications. Particularly, we studied them for the Stimulated Emission Depletion (STED) microscopy, a far-field imaging technique that can provide spatial resolutions beyond the diffraction limit. In the second part of my talk, I will describe a highly sensitive magnetic-field sensor that we built in the lab based on the diamond NV centers and magnetic flux concentrators. The operating frequency range and sensitivity level of the sensor will be shown and some of its limitations will be discussed. I will also present one application of this sensor where we used it to remotely detect Nuclear Quadrupole Resonance (NQR) signals from room-temperature powders. Finally, I will outline a plan to further study the SiV centers for potential applications in scalable quantum networks and other super-resolution imaging techniques.

 

Biography:
I am Yaser Silani, a PhD candidate in the Optical Science & Engineering program at UNM. I got my master’s degree in Photonics at Shahid Beheshti University in Iran. In 2016, I joined Prof. Victor Acosta’s lab at the UNM Center for High Technology Materials (CHTM), and since then, I have been doing research on color centers in diamond and their nano-scale to millimeter-scale optical applications.