A Wide-Field NV Diamond Magnetic Imager for Highly Parallel Detection of Rare Biological Targets

We have developed a wide-field magnetic imaging device based on Nitrogen Vacancy centers in diamond, optimized for the detection of rare, immunomagnetically labeled biological targets such as circulating tumor cells. The new imager allows simultaneous magnetic imaging over a $\sim$ 1 mm$^2$ field of view, approximately two orders of magnitude larger than previous implementations. We describe experiments to detect cancer cells tagged with superparamagnetic nanoparticles, including validation studies for a cell detection assay and technical considerations associated magnetic imaging over very wide fields of view.