A compact and modular tip holder design suitable for scanning NV magnetometry

Nitrogen vacancy scanning probe microscopy (NV-SPM) has emerged as a versatile technique that allows magnetic imaging of a wide variety of interesting materials with high magnetic sensitivity and nanometer spatial resolution. However, designing a compact probe holder in a robust and modular manner, with integrated coherent microwave (MW) delivery while maintaining high photon collection, remains challenging. Here, we report a compact tip holder that incorporates commercially available quartz tuning fork-based scanning NV tips, both with and without integrated radio frequency (RF) antennas, for scanning NV magnetometry under ambient conditions. The architecture can be easily adapted for ultra-high vacuum and low-temperature environments. The tip holder integrates Nanosensors ™ based electronic circuit for atomic force microscopy (AFM) and two distinct approaches to deliver MW to the tip for coherent NV-spin manipulation. The primary design is tailored for commercial NV probes with integrated RF antennas. Nevertheless, a slightly different design is adopted to accommodate NV tips without integrated antennas. As an initial test of AFM performance, topographic images of a marker sample were acquired. Moreover, the efficiency of MW delivery for two different designs of the tip holder is compared using Rabi oscillation and pulsed optically detected magnetic resonance experiments. The presented tip holder integrating MW excitation in a practical and versatile configuration opens up potential applications in the NV-based scanning magnetometry technique.