171 research outputs found
Reaching the quantum limit of sensitivity in electron spin resonance
We report pulsed electron-spin resonance (ESR) measurements on an ensemble of
Bismuth donors in Silicon cooled at 10mK in a dilution refrigerator. Using a
Josephson parametric microwave amplifier combined with high-quality factor
superconducting micro-resonators cooled at millikelvin temperatures, we improve
the state-of-the-art sensitivity of inductive ESR detection by nearly 4 orders
of magnitude. We demonstrate the detection of 1700 bismuth donor spins in
silicon within a single Hahn echo with unit signal-to-noise (SNR) ratio,
reduced to just 150 spins by averaging a single Carr-Purcell-Meiboom-Gill
sequence. This unprecedented sensitivity reaches the limit set by quantum
fluctuations of the electromagnetic field instead of thermal or technical
noise, which constitutes a novel regime for magnetic resonance.Comment: Main text : 10 pages, 4 figures. Supplementary text : 16 pages, 8
figure
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