Mapping Single Electron Spins with Magnetic Tomography

Mapping the positions of single electron spins is a highly desired capability for applications such as nanoscale magnetic resonance imaging and quantum network characterization. Here, we demonstrate a method based on rotating an external magnetic field to identify the precise location of single electron spins in the vicinity of a quantum spin sensor. We use a nitrogen-vacancy center in diamond as a quantum sensor and modulate the dipolar coupling to a proximate electron spin in the crystal by varying the magnetic field vector. The modulation of the dipolar coupling contains information on the coordinates of the spin, from which we extract its position with an uncertainty of 0.9 Å. We show that the method can be used to locate electron spins with nanometer precision up to 10 nm away from the sensor. We discuss the applicability of the method to mapping hyperfine coupled electron spins and show that it may be applied to locating nitroxide radicals. The magnetic tomography method can be utilized for distance measurements for studying the structure of individual molecules.