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Recently, rotation sensors utilizing the nuclear spins of nitrogen-vacancy color centers in diamond have been demonstrated. However, these devices are power-intensive and challenging to integrate into small chip-based radiofrequency antennas and circuits necessary for controlling nuclear spins or producing relatively high magnetic fields. To address this issue, the coherent manipulation of nuclear spins via coherent population trapping at moderate magnetic fields using microwave fields has been successfully demonstrated in isotopically pure diamond. In this work, we demonstrate that a similar technique can be applied to a diamond plate with a natural abundance of carbon-13, which holds significant potential for practical sensing applications. Although the forbidden resonances required for coherent control were only partially observed, coherent population trapping was successfully demonstrated at both visible and invisible transitions, with an apparent contrast of up to 98 +- 11% and a true contrast of approximately 35 +-7%. This finding confirms the feasibility of coherent nuclear spin control even in diamond plates with naturally occurring carbon-13.

Temperature sensors based on GeV color center in diamond are attracting a lot of attention in both science and industry. The industrial adoption of these sensors nevertheless, requires the simplest and cheapest possible design for the sensing element. The original sensor design was based on the measurement of the spectral characteristics of the zero-phonon line. Recently, a modification of this method has been proposed utilizing splitting the GeV emission with a dichroic mirror and determining on temperature from the ratio of two resulting signals. In this analysis, we compare both methods in detail. For measurements near room temperature, both methods have comparable behavior, slightly depended on quality of components used. However, for optimal parameters of a filter at temperatures of about 300 {\deg}C, the new method already outperforms the original by about a factor of 2. Moreover, the sensitivity of the new method remains approximately consistent with that observed at room temperature.

The nitrogen-vacancy center in diamond attracts a lot of attention in sensing applications, mainly for temperature, magnetic field, and rotation measurements. Nuclear spins of carbon-13 surrounding the nitrogen-vacancy center can be used as a memory or sensing element. In the current work, a diamond plate with a relatively large concentration of carbon-13 was synthesized and examined. The spectrum of optically detected magnetic resonance was recorded and analyzed in a magnetic field range of 5-200 G. A strain-independent measurement technique of carbon-13 isotope concentration based on the analysis of magnetic resonance spectra was developed. Additionally, narrow features in the spectrum were detected and understood.

Nitrogen-vacancy centers possessing nuclear spins are promising candidates for a novel nuclear spin gyroscope. Preparation of a nuclear spin state is a crucial step to implement a sensor that utilizes a nuclear spin. In a low magnetic field, such a preparation utilizes population transfer, from polarized electronic spin to nuclear spin, using microwave pulses. The use of the narrowband microwave pulse proposed earlier is inefficient when magnetic transitions are not well resolved, particularly when applied to diamond with a natural abundance of carbon atoms or dense ensembles of nitrogen-vacancy centers. In this study, the authors performed optimization of the pulse shape for 3 relatively easily accessible pulse shapes. The optimization was done for a range of magnetic transition linewidths, corresponding to the practically important range of nitrogen concentrations (5-50 ppm). It was found that, while at low nitrogen concentrations, optimized pulse added very little to simple square shape pulse, and in the case of dense nitrogen-vacancy ensembles, with a rather wide magnetic transition width of 1.5 MHz optimal pulses, a factor of 15% improvement in the population of the target state was observed.

The nitrogen-vacancy color center in diamond is one of the most important systems in the fast-growing field of sensing. This color centers are used in both high-resolution and high-sensitivity sensors. However, techniques for quick and efficient formations of this color center are still in the development stage. In this paper, we present a study on the influence of the electron irradiation dose on the conversion of substitutional nitrogen into $\text{N}{{\text{V}}^{-}}$ centers. The study was done on diamonds that were highly enriched with nitrogen (~100 ppm), which on one hand should maximize the effect of irradiation, and on another be of interest for high-sensitivity magnetometers. The maximum achieved conversion efficiency was as high as ${37\pm 3.7}$, with no observed saturation on the electron dose even with the simplest annealing procedure. The measurements of the corresponding dephasing time made it possible to estimate for shot-noise limited sensitivity per unit volume of a stationary field sensor with such a diamond to be ${9\pm 1\times {{10}^{-14}}\text{T}}/{\sqrt{\text{Hz}\cdot \text{m}{{\text{m}}^{-3}}}}\;$.