Noninvasive measurements of spin transport properties of an antiferromagnetic insulator

Antiferromagnetic insulators (AFIs) are of substantial interest because of their potential in the development of next-generation spintronic devices. One major effort in this emerging field is to harness AFIs for long-range spin information communication and storage. Here, we report a noninvasive method to optically access the intrinsic spin transport properties of an archetypical AFI α-Fe₂O₃ via nitrogen-vacancy (NV) quantum spin sensors. By NV relaxometry measurements, we successfully detect the frequency-dependent dynamic fluctuations of the spin density of α-Fe₂O₃ along the Néel order parameter, from which an intrinsic spin diffusion constant of α-Fe₂O₃ is experimentally measured in the absence of external spin biases. Our results highlight the significant opportunity offered by NV centers in diagnosing the underlying spin transport properties in a broad range of high-frequency magnetic materials such as two-dimensional magnets, spin liquids, and magnetic Weyl semimetals, which are challenging to access by the conventional measurement techniques.