Improving the NV generation efficiency by electron irradiation

The nitrogen vacancy (NV) center in diamond has been well applied in quantum sensing of electromagnetic field and temperature, where the sensitivity can be enhanced by the number of NV centers. Here, we used electron beam irradiation to increase the generation rate of NV centers by nearly 22 times. We systematically studied the optical and electronic properties of the NV center as a function of an electron irradiation dose, where the detection sensitivity of magnetic fields was improved. With such samples with dense NV centers, a sub-pico-Tesla sensitivity in magnetic fields detection can be achieved with optimal controls and detections.