Temperature dependence of the $^{13}$C hyperfine structure of the negatively-charged nitrogen-vacancy center in diamond

Abstract

The nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center is a well utilized system for quantum technology, in particular quantum sensing and microscopy. Fully employing the NV center's capabilities for metrology requires a strong understanding of the behavior of the NV center with respect to changing temperature. Here, we probe the NV electronic spin density as the surrounding crystal temperature changes from 10 K to 700 K by examining its $^{13}$C hyperfine interactions. These results are corroborated with \textit{ab initio} calculations and demonstrate that the change in hyperfine interaction is small and dominated by a change in the hybridization of the orbitals constituting the spin density. Thus indicating that the defect and local crystal geometry is returning towards an undistorted structure at higher temperature.