Non-invasive bioinert room-temperature quantum sensor from silicon carbide qubits
Room-temperature shallow defect spin qubits acting as a quantum sensor with favourable properties towards the biological environment are sought after, with promising impacts on bioimaging, radical detection and nanoscale nuclear spin sensing. Here we show that alkene-terminated silicon carbide hosting divacancy qubits located a few nanometres below the surface leads to a stable operation with superior sensitivity in which the host is a bioinert semiconductor with existing wafer-scale chip technology. The read-out of the qubit occurs at near-infrared wavelengths, which exhibit a minimum absorption by the organic molecules or water. We show that the divacancy qubit can realize multiple quantum sensor schemes under ambient conditions in which the suggested surface termination can be readily tailored towards the desired application. The combination of the paramount host, surface functionalization and qubit properties may significantly advance room-temperature quantum sensing, as well as provide a platform for quantum simulation and optoelectronic devices.
Authors
- Jin‐Shi Xu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0528-1000)
- Chuan‐Feng Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6815-8929)
- Péter Udvarhelyi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7073-1664)
- Bing Qiang Huang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6735-4637)
- Pei Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4108-412X)
- Guang-Can Guo
- Ádám Gali (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3339-5470)
- Song Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8297-5199)
- Ji-Yang Zhou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0004-8382-9742)
Institutions
- University of Science and Technology of China (CN)
- Tianjin University of Technology (CN)
- University of California, Los Angeles (US)
- Hefei University of Technology (CN)
- Beijing Normal University (CN)
- Budapest University of Technology and Economics (HU)
- HUN-REN Wigner Research Centre for Physics (HU)
- Quantum Design (Germany) (DE)
- Beijing Computational Science Research Center (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nature Materials
- Published
- 2025-11-06
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-025-02382-9
- Citations
- 2
- Primary Topic
- Diamond and Carbon-based Materials Research
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 1.04
Funders
- European Commission
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- University of Science and Technology of China
- National Key Research and Development Program of China
- National Safety Academic Fund
- National Research, Development and Innovation Office