Exploring Acoustic Couplings to the SiV center in diamond

Abstract

The negatively charged Silicon Vacancy (SiV) center in diamond has shown extraordinary promise for quantum information applications, in particular quantum networking, due to its long-lived spin memory and high-cooperativity spin-photon interface. In addition to these excellent demonstrations towards quantum networking, the SiV center has also been demonstrated to exhibit a large susceptibility to acoustic phonons. While this susceptibility is typically considered a drawback for necessitating low-temperature operation, it also presents an opportunity to study the strong interactions of SiV centers with acoustic fields. In this thesis, we will discuss several results that focus on the integration of SiV centers with diamond nanostructures with interesting acoustic properties. Through this integration, we will show both how the SiV center can be used as an unprecedented probe of these engineered acoustic environments and conversely how controlling the acoustic environment can be used to unlock new potential for SiV center based quantum networks. Together, these results point towards the SiV center as an exciting candidate for realizing novel hybrid quantum systems composed of photon-mediated quantum networks in the optical domain and phonon-mediated quantum systems in the microwave domain.Engineering and Applied Sciences - Applied Physic