Magnetometry of random ac magnetic fields using a single nitrogen-vacancy center

We report on the use of a single nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center to probe fluctuating ac magnetic fields. Using engineered currents to induce random changes in the field amplitude and phase, we show that stochastic fluctuations reduce the NV center sensitivity and, in general, make the NV response field-dependent. We also introduce two modalities to determine the field spectral composition, unknown a priori in a practical application. One strategy capitalizes on the generation of ac-field-induced coherence “revivals” while the other approach uses the time-tagged fluorescence intensity record from successive NV observations to reconstruct the ac field spectral density. These studies are relevant for magnetic sensing in scenarios where the field of interest has a nontrivial, stochastic behavior, such as sensing unpolarized nuclear spin ensembles at low static magnetic fields.