Santiago Hernandez Gomez - INO-CNR and LENS

Magnetic quantum imaging with NV centers diamond

Heart rhythm disorders remain one of the leading causes of mortality worldwide, yet their prediction remains to be a challenge due to the difficulty of modeling the multiscale spatiotemporal dynamics of the heart. In this context, nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers have emerged in the last decade as quantum sensors, due to the diamond biocompatibility, their spin qubit very long coherence time, even at room temperature, and the sensor spatial resolution, ranging from nm to mm. In our laboratory, we have developed a quantum magnetic sensing and imaging platform based on NV centers in diamond, specifically tailored for the investigation of biological tissues. In particular, the platform is designed to detect electromagnetic signals propagating through cardiac tissue. The quantum magnetic microscope we built is capable of acquiring two-dimensional maps of both DC and AC magnetic signals, including millisecond-scale pulses, with a sensitivity below 50 nT/sqrt(Hz) per pixel and a spatial resolution of approximately 5 μm per pixel. Our objective is to map the magnetic fields generated by cardiac tissue activity and correlate them with voltage maps to investigate vortex excitations associated with cardiac arrhythmias.