AVS 52nd International Symposium
    Nanometer-Scale Science and Technology Tuesday Sessions
       Session NS+EM-TuM

Invited Paper NS+EM-TuM7
Single Spin Detection Using Magnetic Resonance Force Microscopy

Tuesday, November 1, 2005, 10:20 am, Room 210

Session: Nanoscale Electronic Devices & Detection
Presenter: H.J. Mamin, IBM Research Division
Authors: H.J. Mamin, IBM Research Division
R. Budakian, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
B.W. Chui, IBM Research Division
D. Rugar, IBM Research Division
Correspondent: Click to Email
Magnetic resonance force microscopy (MRFM) has been proposed as a method for greatly improving the sensitivity and spatial resolution of magnetic resonance imaging, perhaps even to the atomic level. In this talk, I describe recent experiments at IBM that demonstrate an important step toward this goal, namely the detection of an individual subsurface electron spin. In this technique, the spin is detected via the attonewton-scale force it exerts on a 150-nm sized magnetic tip that is attached to the end of an ultrasensitive micromachined cantilever. The spin, which is associated with a dangling bond in silicon dioxide, is manipulated by cantilever-driven cyclic adiabatic inversion, which results in a slight frequency shift of the cantilever. With this method, we were able to unambiguously detect a single spin located more than 100 nm below the magnetic tip of the cantilever and obtain a spatial resolution of 25 nm in one dimension. I will also describe recent experiments on relatively small ensembles of nuclear spins, and discuss the challenges of pushing the technique toward single nuclear spin detection. This work was supported by the DARPA-QUIST program administered through the Army Research Office.