Wide-field magnetic imaging of Nitrogen Vacancy color centers in diamond

During the past few years, the Nitrogen-Vacancy (NV) color center in diamond emerged as a nanoscale sensor for sensing various relevant quantities like electric and magnetic fields as well as local temperature and strain. Due to its remarkable intrinsic properties at room temperature (highly luminescent, biocompatible, photo-stable and long-coherent spin states) there has been significant advances and achievements in using the NV centers within bulk- and nano diamonds for sensing and fluorescence imaging. In the first part of my presentation, I will give a short introduction of NV color center properties, and the techniques involved (magnetic resonance, microwave excitation and optical pumping and readout) in sensing the quantity of interest. In the second part, I will discuss the status and initial results of our ongoing wide-field fluorescence imaging experiment. Finally, I will provide an outlook towards possible future directions.