Fast Room-Temperature Phase Gate on a Single Nuclear Spin in Diamond

Nuclear spins support long lived quantum coherence due to weak coupling to the environment, but are difficult to rapidly control using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) as a result of the small nuclear magnetic moment. We demonstrate a fast ~ 500 ns nuclear spin phase gate on a 14N nuclear spin qubit intrinsic to a nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond. The phase gate is enabled by the hyperfine interaction and off-resonance driving of electron spin transitions. Repeated applications of the phase gate bang-bang decouple the nuclear spin from the environment, locking the spin state for up to ~ 140 microseconds.Comment: Related papers at http://pettagroup.princeton.ed

Highly-tunable formation of nitrogen-vacancy centers via ion implantation

We demonstrate highly-tunable formation of nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers using 20 keV 15N+ ion implantation through arrays of high-resolution apertures fabricated with electron beam lithography. By varying the aperture diameters from 80 to 240 nm, as well as the average ion fluences from 5 x 10^10 to 2 x 10^11 ions/cm^2, we can control the number of ions per aperture. We analyze the photoluminescence on multiple sites with different implantation parameters and obtain ion-to-NV conversion yields of 6 to 7%, consistent across all ion fluences. The implanted NV centers have spin dephasing times T2* ~ 3 microseconds, comparable to naturally occurring NV centers in high purity diamond with natural abundance 13C. With this technique, we can deterministically control the population distribution of NV centers in each aperture, allowing for the study of single or coupled NV centers and their integration into photonic structures.Comment: Related papers at http://pettagroup.princeton.ed

Hyperfine-enhanced gyromagnetic ratio of a nuclear spin in diamond

The nuclear spin gyromagnetic ratio can be enhanced by hyperfine coupling to the electronic spin. Here we show wide tunability of this enhancement on a (15)Nnuclear spin intrinsic to a single nitrogen-vacancy center in diamond. We perform control of the nuclear spin near the ground state level anti-crossing (GSLAC), where the enhancement of the gyromagnetic ratio from the ground state hyperfine coupling is maximized. We demonstrate a two order of magnitude enhancement of the effective nuclear gyromagnetic ratio compared to the value obtained at 500 G, a typical operating field that is suitable for nuclear spin polarization. Finally, we show that with strong enhancements, the nuclear spin ultimately suffers dephasing from the inhomogeneous broadening of the NMRtransition frequency at the GSLAC

Hyperfine-enhanced gyromagnetic ratio of a nuclear spin in diamond

The nuclear spin gyromagnetic ratio can be enhanced by hyperfine coupling to the electronic spin. Here we show wide tunability of this enhancement on a (15)Nnuclear spin intrinsic to a single nitrogen-vacancy center in diamond. We perform control of the nuclear spin near the ground state level anti-crossing (GSLAC), where the enhancement of the gyromagnetic ratio from the ground state hyperfine coupling is maximized. We demonstrate a two order of magnitude enhancement of the effective nuclear gyromagnetic ratio compared to the value obtained at 500 G, a typical operating field that is suitable for nuclear spin polarization. Finally, we show that with strong enhancements, the nuclear spin ultimately suffers dephasing from the inhomogeneous broadening of the NMRtransition frequency at the GSLAC

Origins of Diamond Surface Noise Probed by Correlating Single-Spin Measurements with Surface Spectroscopy

The nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond exhibits spin-dependent fluorescence and long spin coherence times under ambient conditions, enabling applications in quantum information processing and sensing. NV centers near the surface can have strong interactions with external materials and spins, enabling new forms of nanoscale spectroscopy. However, NV spin coherence degrades within 100 nm of the surface, suggesting that diamond surfaces are plagued with ubiquitous defects. Prior work on characterizing near-surface noise has primarily relied on using NV centers themselves as probes; while this has the advantage of exquisite sensitivity, it provides only indirect information about the origin of the noise. Here we demonstrate that surface spectroscopy methods and single-spin measurements can be used as complementary diagnostics to understand sources of noise. We find that surface morphology is crucial for realizing reproducible chemical termination, and use this insight to achieve a highly ordered, oxygen-terminated surface with suppressed noise. We observe NV centers within 10 nm of the surface with coherence times extended by an order of magnitude