Nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond have precipitated profound advances in microwave detection, manifesting themselves both in spatial resolution and sensitivity. However, typical methods based on Rabi oscillations are subject to detunings due to thermal and magnetic fluctuations and/or gradients, which introduce systematic errors and render the measurements susceptible to environmental perturbations. Here, we propose and demonstrate a novel approach for determining both the magnitude and direction of microwaves, by exploiting the spectral line broadening effect in the optically detected magnetic resonance of NV centers. This method eliminates the requirement of aligning the MW frequency to the spin transitions and is therefore immune to variations and inhomogeneities of the magnetic field and temperature, providing an optimal tool for fast imaging applications. With this method, we achieved near-field microwave imaging of a microscale “$\mathrm{\Omega }$”-pattern antenna with a resolution of 800 nm. Using multiaxis NVs, a reconstruction of the vector microwave fields is obtained. Our results augment the applicability of diamond-based microwave near-field imaging in applications under complex scenarios, especially where large dynamic range, fast imaging, and highspatial resolution are demanded.

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• NV centers
• Optical & microwave phenomena
• Quantum sensing
• Microwave techniques