Quantum Sensing of Spin Transport Properties of an Antiferromagnetic Insulator

Hailong Wang, Shu Zhang, Nathan J. McLaughlin, Benedetta Flebus, Mengqi Huang, Yuxuan Xiao, Eric E. Fullerton, Yaroslav Tserkovnyak, Chunhui Rita Du

Published 2020-11-08Version 1

Antiferromagnetic insulators (AFIs) are of significant interest due to their potential to develop next-generation spintronic devices. One major effort in this emerging field is to harness AFIs for long-range spin information communication and storage. Here, we report a non-invasive method to optically access the intrinsic spin transport properties of an archetypical AFI {\alpha}-Fe2O3 via nitrogen-vacancy (NV) quantum spin sensors. By NV relaxometry measurements, we successfully detect the time-dependent fluctuations of the longitudinal spin density of {\alpha}-Fe2O3. The observed frequency dependence of the NV relaxation rate is in agreement with a theoretical model, from which an intrinsic spin diffusion constant of {\alpha}-Fe2O3 is experimentally measured in the absence of external spin biases. Our results highlight the significant opportunity offered by NV centers in diagnosing the underlying spin transport properties in a broad range of high-frequency magnetic materials, which are challenging to access by more conventional measurement techniques.