Functionalized Fluorescent Nanodiamonds with Millisecond Spin Relaxation Times

Fluorescent nanodiamonds (FNDs) containing nitrogen-vacancy (NV) defects are useful probes for biological imaging and nanoscale sensing applications. Here, we explore the effect of chemical surface modifications and core–shell structures on the T₁ relaxation times of 100 nm FNDs hosting nitrogen-vacancy ensembles. The results show that surface oxidation and silica coating of FNDs using the Stöber method can dramatically increase the spin relaxation time from T₁ = 320 ± 9 μs to T₁ = 1.00 ± 0.06 ms. Using FT-IR and NEXAFS measurements conducted on air oxidized particles, we find that changes to surface functional groups and sp² carbon density may be responsible for the observed enhancements to the spin relaxation rate. Finally, we use a Monte Carlo model to numerically investigate the relationship between chemical sensitivity and shell thickness and find that a shell thickness on the order of 1 nm should provide the highest sensitivity. Our findings demonstrate that the surface of FNDs can be engineered to exhibit bulk-like T₁ relaxation times, in the absence of complex quantum control sequences, which is crucial to advancing biosensing and imaging applications where surface spin noise currently limits measurement precision.