Nanometre-scale probing of spin waves using single electron spins

Understand

Correlated-electron systems support a wealth of magnetic excitations, ranging from conventional spin waves to exotic fractional excitations in low-dimensional or geometrically-frustrated spin systems.

• Probing such excitations on nanometre length scales is essential for unravelling the underlying physics and developing new spintronic nanodevices.
• However, no established technique provides real-space, few-nanometre-scale probing of correlated-electron magnetic excitations under ambient conditions.
• Here we present a solution to this problem using magnetometry based on single nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centres in diamond.