Institute of Organic Chemistry
and Biochemistry of the CAS

Biocompatible nanoscale probes for sensitive detection of paramagnetic species and molecules associated with their (bio)chemical transformations would provide a desirable tool for a better understanding of cellular redox processes. Here, we describe an analytical tool based on quantum sensing techniques. We magnetically coupled negatively charged nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in nanodiamonds (NDs) with nitroxide radicals present in a bioinert polymer coating of the NDs. We demonstrated that the T₁ spin relaxation time of the NV centers is very sensitive to the number of nitroxide radicals, with a resolution down to ∼10 spins per ND (detection of approximately 10^–23 mol in a localized volume). The detection is based on T₁ shortening upon the radical attachment, and we propose a theoretical model describing this phenomenon. We further show that this colloidally stable, water-soluble system can be used dynamically for spatiotemporal readout of a redox chemical process (oxidation of ascorbic acid) occurring near the ND surface in an aqueous environment under ambient conditions.