Quantum Scanning Tips
Brighter. Stronger. More Sensitive.
Your new Quantum Sensor made of diamond
The heart of any scanning NV system is the sensor tip, the crucial element that determines performance. We shape and treat our tips to be bright, robust and high quality, and continuously work to make them better.
A single NV is located at the apex of the diamond tip, typically 10 nm below the surface. The diamond is attached to a tuning fork that enables force feedback for AFM operation. The entire assembly is mounted on a ceramic chip, easy to handle, fully characterized, and ready for use.
We also offer scanning tips with two optical outcoupling structures made of diamond, called double pillar tips, one of them with a single NV and one of them with multiple NVs. The second, multiple NV structure adds vector information about both the sample and bias magnetic field at a different point in space.
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.
Also check out our probes with integrated microwave antenna: space saving, no more alignment, no potential danger to the tip.
An Overview.
Technical specifications
Each scanning tip is rigorously characterized by aligning a bias magnetic field to the NV axis providing you with the key NV characteristics including, ODMR contrast and brightness, saturation count rate, NV orientation, T2 dechoerence time, spectroscopy of the hyperfine structure.
Read How it works for an in depth explanation of our key specifications.
We offer probes in three different diamond cuts (100, 110, 111), two orientation (UP and DOWN) and various sensitivity classes. Typical values for contrast, count rate and T2 of QZabre's scanning tips are summarized in the table below:
| Contrast (at 10 MHz line width) | 15% - 27% |
| Saturation count rate (0.75 NA) | 0.6 - 1.2 MCts/s |
| Nominal NV depth | 10 nm |
| T2/T2* (single Hahn echo/XY) | 4 - 1 μs (average values) |
| Nominal cw-ODMR sensitivity (Q2-Q8) | 1 - 7 μT/sqrt(Hz) |
| Brightness (at max. contrast) | 100 - 1'000 kcts/s |
Each scanning probe is delivered with a known NV axis orientation and fully characterized properties of brightness, contrast and coherence. The sensistivity of standard 100-probes is classified in the seven qualities according to the following binning:
QST quality<100> cut | Sensitivity[μT/sqrt(Hz)] | Price[CHF] |
| Q1- AFM | N.A. | 800 |
| Q2 | <7 | 1250 |
| Q3 | <4 | 2000 |
| Q4 | <3 | 2150 |
| Q5 | <2.3 | 2350 |
| Q6 | <1.9 | 2700 |
| Q7 | <1.7 | 3200 |
| Q8 | <1.5 | 3700 |
Resolved hyperfine splitting is guaranteed for quality Q4 and higher. Curious to know all the details?
Have a look at our brochure Brochure_QST_2023.1_.pdf. Get in touch to know our full pricing list.
Spatial Information
NV axis orientations
In NV experiments, measurements of the magnetic stray field are always projective onto the NV axis. This depends on the crystal orientation of the diamond from which the tips are made. The most widely available cut is <100> which leads to NV orientations of 54.7° with respect to the normal.
For specific applications, we also offer tips with in-plane and out-of-plane orientation. This is especially useful for measurements with magnetic bias, as signal decreases with increasing off-axis magnetic fields, or elimination directional bias (out-of-plane tips).
PCB carrier and tip orientation
For easy handling, our diamond tips are integrated on a plug-and-play sensor chip. Each sensor chip consists of a ceramic carrier, a tuning fork distance sensor and the diamond tip. A minimal carrier thickness ensures that the sensor can be mounted in microscopes where vertical space is tight. Custom tilt of the diamond probe are possible upon request. Dimensions and contact feedlines on the ceramic chip carrier are compatible with the Akiyama probe footprint. The entire sensor chip is vacuum and cryo-compatible.
We offer two standard configurations of tip versus PCB orientation. We call them UP and DOWN. Choose the one that fits your experimental setup before ordering.
You can find all the details of our Quantum Scanning Tips in this specsheet: QST_Orientations.pdf
Integrating the Antenna on the Diamond Probe
Integrated antenna
Our integrated probes offer a pre-aligned antenna in the close proximity of the diamond probe. Whether you are space constrained in a cryo system, or just don't want to risk crashing a wire into a scanning tip, our patented integration of scanning tip and microwave line will make your life easier. No more alignment of the microwave excitation lines also implies a quicker tip exchange and preparation of your measurements.
We pre-align and fix the microfabricated, broadband transmission line at the position where it generates high Rabi rates of the NV center.
Two versions are available:
1) A bare PCB with SMPM connectors that gives you the most flexibility and is also compatible with attocube LT NVM systems.
2) A PCB that is mounted in a CNC housing that fits the QSM.
How to order
We can customize the sensor chip to your specific needs and are happy to provide test samples to verify that our tips fit your setup. To provide you with a quote, please tell us:
| What sensitivity do you want? | Q1, Q2, ... , Q8 |
| What NV axis orientation do you want? | Standard (100), in-plane (110), out-of-plane (111) |
| What tip orientation do you want? | UP or DOWN |
| Other requests |
Send us your wishlist at info@qzabre.com and we will send you a quote promptly.