Towards Chemical Structure Resolution with Nanoscale Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy

Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy has approached the limit of single-molecule sensitivity; however, the spectral resolution is currently insufficient to obtain detailed information on chemical structure and molecular interactions. Here we demonstrate more than 2 orders of magnitude improvement in spectral resolution by performing correlation spectroscopy with shallow nitrogen-vacancy magnetic sensors in diamond. In principle, the resolution is sufficient to observe chemical shifts in approximately 1 T magnetic fields and is currently limited by molecular diffusion at the surface. We measure oil diffusion rates of D = 0.15-0.2 nm(2)/mu s within (5 nm)(3) volumes at the diamond surface.