We demonstrate a magnetometry technique using nitrogen-vacancy centres in diamond which makes use of coherent two-photon transitions. We find that the sensitivity to magnetic fields can be significantly improved in isotopically purified diamond. Furthermore, the long-term stability of magnetic field measurements is significantly enhanced, thereby reducing the minimum detectable long-term field variations for both quasi-static and periodic fields. The method is useful both for sensing applications and as a spin qubit manipulation technique.
We propose a protocol to estimate magnetic fields using a single nitrogen-vacancy (N-V) center in diamond, where the estimate precision scales inversely with time, ~1/T$, rather than the square-root of time. The method is based on converting the task of magnetometry into phase estimation, performing quantum phase estimation on a single N-V nuclear spin using either adaptive or nonadaptive feedback control, and the recently demonstrated capability to perform single-shot readout within the N-V [P. Neumann et. al., Science 329, 542 (2010)]. We present numerical simulations to show that our method provides an estimate whose precision scales close to ~1/T (T is the total estimation time), and moreover will give an unambiguous estimate of the static magnetic field experienced by the N-V. By combining this protocol with recent proposals for scanning magnetometry using an N-V, our protocol will provide a significant decrease in signal acquisition time while providing an unambiguous spatial map of the magnetic field.
Atomic magnetometers are highly sensitive detectors of magnetic fields that monitor the evolution of the macroscopic magnetic moment of atomic vapors, and opening new applications in biological, physical, and chemical science. However, the performance of atomic magnetometers is often limited by hidden systematic effects that may cause misdiagnosis for a variety of applications, e.g., in NMR and in biomagnetism. In this work, we uncover a hitherto unexplained interference effect in atomic magnetometers, which causes an important systematic effect to greatly deteriorate the accuracy of measuring magnetic fields. We present a standard approach to detecting and characterizing the interference effect in, but not limited to, atomic magnetometers. As applications of our work, we consider the effect of the interference in NMR structural determination and locating the brain electrophysiological symptom, and show that it will help to improve the measurement accuracy by taking interference effects into account. Through our experiments, we indeed find good agreement between our prediction and the asymmetric amplitudes of resonant lines in ultralow-field NMR spectra -- an effect that has not been understood so far. We anticipate that our work will stimulate interesting new researches for magnetic interference phenomena in a wide range of magnetometers and their applications.
We present the experimental reconstruction of the Wigner function of an individual electronic spin qubit associated with a nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond at room temperature. This spherical Wigner function contains the same information as the density matrix for arbitrary spin systems. As an example, we exactly characterize the quantum state of a single qubit undergoing a nearly pure dephasing process by Wigner function. The fidelities and purities during this process are extracted from the experimental reconstructed Wigner functions, whose dynamics agree with the theoretical prediction. Our method can be applied to multi-qubit systems for measuring the Wigner function of their collective spin state.
We present a detailed theoretical and numerical study discussing the application and optimization of phase estimation algorithms (PEAs) to diamond spin magnetometry. We compare standard Ramsey magnetometry, the non-adaptive PEA (NAPEA) and quantum PEA (QPEA) incorporating error-checking. Our results show that the NAPEA requires lower measurement fidelity, has better dynamic range, and greater consistency in sensitivity. We elucidate the importance of dynamic range to Ramsey magnetic imaging with diamond spins, and introduce the application of PEAs to time-dependent magnetometry.
We demonstrate quantum interference between indistinguishable photons emitted by two nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in distinct diamond samples separated by two meters. Macroscopic solid immersion lenses are used to enhance photon collection efficiency. Quantum interference is verified by measuring a value of the second-order cross-correlation function $g^{(2)}(0) = 0.35 pm 0.04<0.5$. In addition, optical transition frequencies of two separated NV centers are tuned into resonance with each other by applying external electric fields. Extension of the present approach to generate entanglement of remote solid-state qubits is discussed.