As of June, we have relocated to our new offices and labs. They are more spacious and come with a magnificent view, with the Alps in the background. We’re still in the Oerlikon quarter of Zurich, but now at Neunbrunnenstrasse 50. To celebrate our move and thank everyone for their support — and also to get to know our new surroundings — we recently had a wonderful dinner in our new neighbourhood. We look forward to this fresh chapter in our journey. Photos.
As of June, we have relocated to our new offices and labs. They are more spacious and come with a magnificent view, with the Alps in the background. We’re still in the Oerlikon quarter of Zurich, but now at Neunbrunnenstrasse 50. To celebrate our move and thank everyone for their support — and also to get to know our new surroundings — we recently had a wonderful dinner in our new neighbourhood. We look forward to this fresh chapter in our journey. Photos.
One of the joys of working with thriving scientific communities is that there are gatherings of all sizes and formats — bringing various forms of interaction. Immediately following the world's largest conference dedicated to magnetism, the ICM2024 in Bologna, our CTO Andrea Morales travelled to Perugia for the 25th International Colloquium on Magnetic Films and Surfaces (ICMFS2024), a satellite event of ICM24.
The ICMFS series consists of much smaller events, dedicated to magnetism in lower dimensions, including magnetism at surfaces, in micro- and nanostructures, and spin-dependent phenomena. These are systems into which scanning NV magnetometry can provide unique insights, as Andrea highlighted in a poster he presented in Perugia. The poster sessions were lively, allowing plenty of interaction and in-depth discussions with the community. More.
Last week, our quantum software engineer Simon Josephy installed a brand new QZabre Quantum Scanning NV Microscope in the group of Aurore Finco at the Solid-State Quantum Technologies (S2QT) lab in the Laboratoire Charles Coulomb at the Université de Montpellier. More.
From 30 June to 5 July 2024, the world's largest conference of the magnetism community took place in Bologna, Italy: the 22nd International Conference on Magnetism ICM2024. Among the more than 2000 participants from all over the world were the Nobel laureates Giorgio Parisi and Albert Fert, who gave captivating special plenary lectures, and researchers from across the broad field of magnetism.
Andrea Morales, Björn Áki Jósteinsson, Simon Josephy and Zhewen Xu represented QZabre at the conference. They were delighted to meet both existing customers and researchers interested in adding NV magnetometry to their toolset — perhaps inspired by a number of excellent talks presenting data collected with our instruments and tips. These included invited talks by Aurore Finco (Université de Montpellier) on the detection of magnetic chirality from spin-wave noise and by Toeno van der Sar (Delft University of Technology) on magnetic imaging of interacting spin waves. More.
We are pleased to announce the successful delivery of another one of our turnkey quantum scanning NV microscopes. Earlier this month, we installed a QZabre QSM in the M³ lab (Magnetism, Magnetic materials & Magnetic devices lab) of Prof. Jayasimha Atulasimha at the Virginia Commonwealth University. More.
Earlier this month, QZabre CEO Gabriel Puebla-Hellmann and CTO Andrea Morales had the distinct privilege of participating in the attocube systems AG 2D Materials Conference in Haar near Munich.
As one of only a few companies invited to participate in this unique gathering of esteemed speakers and attendees, QZabre was honoured to be part of the event. We were particularly pleased to see a number of our valued customers in attendance, including Prof. Chunhui Du (Georgia Institute of Technology), Prof. Christian Degen (ETH Zürich), Dr. Samuel Mañas-Valero (Universitat de València), Prof. Toeno van der Sar (Delft University of Technology), and Prof. Cristian Bonato (Heriot-Watt University).
The sheer number of high-profile speakers from across the wider field of 2D materials, combined with the relatively intimate setting of a few hundred attendees made this conference a truly unique experience. Gabriel and Andrea enjoyed the many engaging and insightful discussions — including numerous conversations with attocube about the low-temperature scanning NV system for which QZabre provides components, software, and know-how. In addition, the conference dinner in Munich's Ratskeller and the poster session provided excellent opportunities for networking and establishing new contacts.
We would like to thank the entire attocube team for their efforts in organising this outstanding conference and look forward to future collaborations and continued growth in the field. Photos.
As one of its spin-offs, we maintain close ties with ETH Zürich. So it was a special pleasure and privilege to have the opportunity to contribute to the ETH-Munich Quantum Exchange — the second edition of an exchange programme organized by the Quantum Engineering Commission and PushQuantum, involving 20 ETH students and 20 students from the Technische Universität München and the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.
As part of the programme held in Zurich, representatives from various industries provided insights into aspects of quantum science and technology beyond academia. One of the speakers at this Industry Forum was QZabre CTO Andrea Morales, who enjoyed answering the many of science questions and the engaging discussions on industrialization and technology transfer to industry. More.
Observation of current whirlpools in graphene at room temperature
In a recent paper published in Science Magazine, the Spin Physics group of Christian Degen at D-PHYS — from which QZabre was spun off in 2018 — reports the first-ever imaging of stationary current vortices in monolayer graphene at room temperature. This experimental observation of 'current whirlpools' beautifully demonstrates how electronic transport in high-mobility conductors can resemble the flow of classical fluids. These remarkable results were made possible by nanoscale scanning magnetometry using QZabre scanning tips attached to quartz tuning forks to control the tip–sample distance. In addition to providing unique insight into current vortices, this work showcases the ability of NV magnetometry to study hydrodynamic effects at the nanoscale, which might be extended to other materials and to non-linear phenomena such as turbulence.
Earlier this month, QZabre co-founder Jan Rhensius and Quantum Software Engineer Simon Josephy enjoyed productive days in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
First up was the International Symposium on Integrated Magnetics 2024 (iSIM 2024), where Jan gave an invited talk on nanoscale diamond magnetometry. The symposium was followed by the main event, the INTERMAG 2024. The Intermag conference, sponsored by the IEEE Magnetics Society, is the 'place to be' for researchers working on fundamental and applied magnetism. And the 2024 edition — the first to be held in South America — lived up to the high expectations. Jan and Simon enjoyed many fruitful exchanges at the QZabre booth and were delighted to see the great interest in NV microscopy. More.
The latest of our turnkey quantum scanning NV microscopes was installed at the end of March in the laboratories of Junior Professor Angela Wittmann at the Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz.
The Wittmann group studies spintronic phenomena in novel and unconventional material systems to gain a fuller understanding of the underlying physical mechanisms and to develop innovative devices. We are delighted that they have chosen the QZabre QSM as their latest tool and look forward to the insights and discoveries that will emerge from their research. More.
Our CEO Gabriel Puebla-Hellmann is back from a trip to Dallas, Texas, where he attended this year's IEEE International Reliability Physics Symposium (IRPS), the premier conference for engineers and scientists working in the field of microelectronics reliability. The conference was an amazing opportunity to get a feel for the current state of the art in fabrication and to engage in great discussions about the role of quantum sensing in the field. 70% of the attendees were from companies, with every major player in the semiconductor industry represented. Gabriel also had the pleasure and privilege of presenting his work with Björn Áki Jósteinsson, Rayen Mahjoub, Simon Josephy and Andrea Morales on tracing currents at the nanometre scale using scanning NV microscopy. Only a third of the submissions were accepted as talks, making it a true honour to present this work to such an esteemed audience. More.
Gabriel Puebla-Hellmann and Björn Áki Jósteinsson enjoyed a few springtime days in Berlin, where the Spring Meeting of the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft e. V. (DPG) Condensed Matter Section took place last month on the campus of the Technische Universität Berlin.
The conference covers a wide range of topics, and it was great to see the breadth of exciting work involving scanning NV microscopy. This included great talks by Vincent Jacques (Université de Montpellier and CNRS - Centre national de la recherche scientifique) on single-spin imaging and by Sreehari Jayaram from the group of Jörg Wrachtrup at the Universität Stuttgart, who showed nice low-temperature data using QZabre scanning tips. More.
An exciting week in Minneapolis
Andrea Morales, Simon Josephy and Zhewen Xu had busy days at the QZabre booth in the Exhibit Hall. We were particularly excited to officially present a new project in collaboration with attocube systems AG: the development of the first low-temperature NV magnetometer (LT-NVM), which will soon be delivered and installed in the laboratory of Prof. Cristian Bonato at Heriot-Watt University.
Meanwhile, in the scientific sessions, we were impressed by the many remarkable results presented by the customers using our products — particularly in the NV session and by the group of Prof. Chunhui Rita Du and her group at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Senlei Li gave a wonderful talk on scanning quantum sensing of quantum materials. More.
An exciting and rewarding facet of working in the young field of quantum technologies is seeing early-stage researchers develop into pioneers. One platform on which this is happening is the SPEAR-ITN doctoral training network. SPEAR brings together 15 young scientists studying at three universities, three research institutes and three SMEs across Europe fundamental and applied aspects of spin-orbitronics, which deals with the rich physical phenomena observed in condensed-matter systems arising from spin-orbit coupling.
One of these young scientists is Zhewen Xu, a joint PhD student between QZabre and the Spin Physics group of Christian Degen at D-PHYS. He recently returned from the third SPEAR consortium meeting in Hamburg, where the early-stage researchers reported on the progress of their research projects. More.
Seeing is believing – commercial cryogenic NV magnetometry is becoming real
Great news from our colleagues at the attocube systems AG Innovation Lab: A team led by their Principal Scientist Clemens Schäfermeier has successfully completed the first low-temperature NV magnetometry measurements with a commercial system in a dry cryostat. They imaged the magnetic domains in an Ir/Fe/Co/Pt multilayer at 2.8 K using a QZabre NV tip with integrated microwave antenna and our accompanying software. This is the first NV-magnetometry measurement at cryogenic temperatures using an NV tip with an microwave antenna integrated on the same chip carrier — a combination that offers unique compactness and ease of use for ultra-sensitive cryogenic quantum sensing. The tip-to-sample distance was about 60 nm, which also set the limit for the lateral magnetic resolution, as can be seen in the image below. More.
QZabre now offers scanning tips with two optical outcoupling structures made of diamond, which we call 'double pillar tips'. One pillar has a single NV implanted 10 nm below the surface for high-resolution imaging. The second pillar is shorter and has multiple NVs.
In addition to the usual high-quality imaging provided by a single NV, the second NV collects data in a plane offset from the first. For highly magnetic samples, the shallow NV can typically only be used in the qualitative 'quench mode'. As the second pillar is further away, it does not quench and adds quantitative data at a lower resolution to the image. For weakly magnetic samples, the NVs in the second pillar can be used to tune the bias field, as the multiple NVs enable a vector reconstruction of the magnetic field.
For customers in the United States the double pillar design is the only scanning tip geometry available from QZabre. The double pillar tips are covered by U.S. Pat. No. 8,415,640 licensed from Harvard University.
A great start to the 2024 conference calendar
The SPIE Photonics West was our first conference in 2024 — and it was a great one. Our CTO Andrea Morales was in San Francisco and enjoyed meeting many friends and industry partners from around the world at the QZabre booth, as well as having countless stimulating conversations with new customers and industry players. More.
Revealing emergent magnetic charge in an antiferromagnet with diamond quantum magnetometry
In a wonderful demonstration of the capabilities of diamond quantum magnetometry, the group of Mete Atatüre at the University of Cambridge has used QZabre quantum scanning tips to image magnetic vortices in the archetypal antiferromagnet hematite. In addition to recording the local magnetization, they independently reconstructed the magnetic charge hosted by these spin textures — thereby showcasing how diamond quantum magnetometry can provide a unique perspective for exploring emergent topological phenomena in quantum materials. More.
NV spin properties controlled by magnetic domain wall motion
It is always a pleasure to see how our products help customers gain exciting new insights. Last month, Chunhui Rita Du and her group at the Georgia Institute of Technology (formerly at UC San Diego) reported in the journal ACS Nano how they achieved local control of a single NV center by engineering magnetic domain wall motion at the nanoscale. Their measurements were performed with a custom-designed QZabre Quantum Scanning NV Microscope (QSM) equipped with a QZabre Quantum Scanning Tip (QST). More.
The final destination in our 2023 calendar of conference visits was Chennai, India, where the XXII International Workshop on Physics of Semiconductor Devices (IWPSD) took place last week. More.
Another of our turnkey quantum scanning NV microscopes is delivered: The latest QSM instrument has just been installed in the lab of Prof. Malte Drescher at the University of Konstanz. More.
This week, Zhewen Xu presented his research in Jingting, Hainan Province, China, where currently the 19th National Conference on Magnetism and Magnetic Materials and the 12th National Conference on Magnetic Thin Films and Nanomagnetism is held. More.
This week, QZabre CEO Gabriel Puebla-Hellmann and Quantum Software Engineer Simon Josephy are in Dallas for the 68th Annual Conference on Magnetism and Magnetic Materials (MMM). The conference is a unique venue for scientists and engineers interested in the latest developments in fundamental and applied magnetism. More.
On Monday this week, our quantum software engineer Björn Áki Jósteinsson presented the QZabre approach to breaking the μT barrier in scanning NV magnetometry at the Quantum Industry Day in Switzerland. QIDiS brings together key players in academic and industrial research, as well as policy makers, to share the latest developments in quantum science and technology. More.
Yesterday, QZabre CEO Gabriel Puebla-Hellmann gave a presentation on scanning NV microscopy and its diverse applications — as well as a live demonstration — at the Quantum Business Network (QBN) Quantum Industry Summit in Stuttgart. For anyone involved or interested in quantum technologies, Stuttgart is the place to be these days. At Messe Stuttgart, yesterday and today the Quantum Effects exhibition and conference took place, with the QBN Quantum Industry Summit as a part of the programme. More.
We are continually developing our quantum scanning tips to further improve performance and ease of use. This includes the integration of the tip with a microwave antenna. Our integrated probes provide a pre-aligned antenna in close proximity to the diamond probe. This solution is compact — space is always at a premium in a cryo system — and eliminates the need to align the antenna, making tip changes faster and removing the risk of damaging the scanning tip. Read more.
Time flies — it’s been five years since QZabre was founded. What better occasion to raise a glass with our team members, partners and friends. More.
A paper presenting the results of a collaboration between QZabre, the Degen group and Gambardella group was highlighted as one of the most-read papers in Applied Physics Letters last year, with 2382 downloads. The paper reports for the first time the fabrication of tips with in-plane nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond. More.
We now offer the new quality grade Q8 for our Quantum Scanning Tips (QSTs), in addition to the previously available qualities (Q1, Q2, ..., Q7). The Q8 sensors have a magnetic sensitivity of better than 1.5 μT/sqrt(Hz), higher than any of our other sensors. The result is a stronger signal, which means a faster scan speed or less noise in your data. More information.
We are delighted to announce that another of our turn-key quantum scanning NV microscopes has been installed, in the lab of Assistant Professor Vidya Praveen Bhallamudi at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. The research of our newest customer is dedicated to spin and photon-based quantum technologies, with a focus on NV centers in diamond. We are proud that Prof. Bhallamudi and his group have chosen the QZabre QSM and look forward to the exciting data and insights they will generate. More.
Our CEO Gabriel Puebla-Hellmann and QZabre quantum software engineer Simon Josephy are currently at the 11th International Symposium on Metallic Multilayers (MML 2023), which takes place this week in the stunning setting of the Korea University in Seoul.
At our exhibition booth, Gabriel and Simon discuss with MML attendees how the QZabre QSM can help them in their research. And in live remote demonstrations, visitors are able to see first-hand how fast quantitative magnetic-field maps and other information can be obtained at ambient conditions with high sensitivity and at resolutions better than 40 nm — and how versatile and easy to use our QSM is. More.
Our QSM has the ability to perform polar magneto-optical Kerr effect (MOKE) microscopy of magnetic samples. This functionality enables the correlation of magnetic field and magnetisation. Quickly identify features of interest by scanning large sample areas and use the additional data on sample surface magnetization for a better understanding of your material.
The QS3 software interface has built-in widgets both for 2D magnetic domain mapping and for measuring magnetic hysteresis loops. The integrated MOKE measurement setup delivers sensitivities of better than 1 mrad and offers in-situ Faraday and drift correction.
Yesterday, QZabre CEO Gabriel Puebla-Hellmann was a speaker at a networking lunch organised by the Quantum Business Network (QBN) and Quantum Delta NL in Munich, where currently the World of QUANTUM, an international trade fair for quantum technology, is taking place. The “Networking Lunch with Tech & Biz Pitches” brought together players from industry, science and start-ups. The event kicked off with a series of three-minute pitches, including Gabriel's, to provide food for thought before lunch was served. More.
We cordially welcome Björn Áki Jósteinsson to the QZabre team. Björn completed his Bachelor's degree in Engineering Physics at the University of Iceland and then joined the new Master's degree programme in Quantum Engineering at ETH Zürich. He graduated earlier this year, after conducting his Master's thesis research in the group of Jonathan Home.
Björn is no stranger to QZabre. He worked with us between June 2021 and July 2022, first as a project intern and then as a product development specialist. We are delighted that he has now chosen to join the team full-time as a quantum software engineer. Welcome on board.
Last Friday, we had the pleasure of welcoming at QZabre some 20 MSc students in quantum science and technology from the TUM and LMU. The visit was a part of the ETH–Munich Quantum Exchange programme organized by the Quantum Engineering Commission at ETHZ and PushQuantum, following a visit to 20 ETH students to Munich in April. More.
This week Jan Rhensius and Simon Josephy demonstrate the QSM at Intermag 2023 in Sendai, Japan. At our booth, visitors can experience the performance and user-friendliness of the QSM — including Quickscan ODMR demo measurements at pixel rates up to 200 Hz, so that 100×100-pixel scans can be acquired in under a minute. And thanks to our QS3 quantum control software package with an intuitive user interface, scanning NV with the QSM is as simple as AFM. More.
QZabre maintains strong ties to the academic group from which it originated, the Spin Physics group of Prof. Chtristian Degen at ETH Zürich. And that not only in scientific matters.
Last Saturday, we proudly sponsored the two teams with which the Degen group entered this year's edition of the SOLA-Stafette, the traditional academic relay race in and around the city of Zurich. And both teams — SPINsters ES and SPINsters GS, for 'excited state' and 'ground state', respectively — were fast. Of 1014 finishers, SPINsters GS came home in 241th place, and SPINsters ES in 35th place. The latter marks the best-ever result for a Degen group team, and the best result this year for a team of the ETH Departments of Physics and of Materials.
QZabre also contributed directly to this result. Our CEO Gabriel Puebla Hellmann ran the 14th and last leg for the ES team, the final 5.6 km of the 113-km race, setting the 65th-fastest time on this leg. So plenty of reason to celebrate at the BBQ for which all teams from the ETH Department of Physics gathered after the race — and to look forward to next year's edition of the SOLA-Stafette. LinkedIn Post.
The MindPhair 2023 at ETH Zurich was really cool event. So many interested students visited our booth to find out more about quantum sensing and the potential future of quantum technologies. We look forward to your applications! More.
Are you visiting the APS? Visit us at Booth #121 and discuss with us how your research can benefit from NV!
Why does the QSM perform so well? One part is because we designed the optics from scratch, with each element tuned to the NV emission band. Covering the end of the VIS and the beginning of the NIR band, part of the emission band of the NV is always outside of standard specifications. Since every photon counts, we even went as far as custom objectives. Combined with our high performance probes we get enough signal-to-noise to do scanning ODMR at up to 200 pixels/s, quite an improvement to the seconds/pixels of a few years ago.
Another QSM delivered to Dr. Karim Bouzehouane @Unité Mixte de Physique CNRS/Thales. Zoom in to see the high resolution, large area scan of strained Bismuth Iron Oxide we did with Karim! We look forward to a lot of exciting data coming from our newest customer!
Another QSM is up and running at the Institute Jean Lamour CNRS. We look forward to exciting results!
In addition to fast, quantitave scanning, the system has an additional optical beam line and a custom housing, highlighting our flexible platform. So if you have a wishlist extending beyond "standard NV", talk to us.
MMM at Minneapolis started yesterday! We were swamped by the interest in scanning NV. Come by our booth to get a live, remote demo of how fast (200 pixels/s) and easy scanning NV can be!
1350 x 760 pixels in 3 hours and 5 minutes with full field information. That’s how fast the QSM can be. Check out the details of our technique here.
We have added new scanning tips to our lineup, where the NV axis is oriented out-of-plane! Get in touch with us now for a quotation.
Did you ever wish to measure at high in-plane field with NVs? We demonstrate scanning NV magnetometry at an in-plane field of 40mT over a Co–NiO film. Check out the details in this paper!