Two-dimensional nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy with a microfluidic diamond quantum sensor

Abstract: Quantum sensors based on nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond have emerged as a promising detection modality for nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy owing to their micron-scale detection volume and non-inductive based detection. A remaining challenge is to realize sufficiently high spectral resolution and concentration sensitivity for multidimensional NMR analysis of picoliter sample volumes. Here, we address this challenge by spatially separating the polarization and detection phases of the experiment in a microfluidic platform. We realize a spectral resolution of 0.65 +/- 0.05 Hz, an order-of-magnitude improvement over previous diamond NMR studies. We use the platform to perform two-dimensional correlation spectroscopy of liquid analytes within an effective ~20 picoliter detection volume. The use of diamond quantum sensors as in-line microfluidic NMR detectors is a significant step towards applications in mass-limited chemical analysis and single cell biology.