No Arabic abstract
Characterizing the local internal environment surrounding solid-state spin defects is crucial to harnessing them as nanoscale sensors of external fields. This is especially germane to the case of defect ensembles which can exhibit a complex interplay between interactions, internal fields and lattice strain. Working with the nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond, we demonstrate that local electric fields dominate the magnetic resonance behavior of NV ensembles at low magnetic field. We introduce a simple microscopic model that quantitatively captures the observed spectra for samples with NV concentrations spanning over two orders of magnitude. Motivated by this understanding, we propose and implement a novel method for the nanoscale localization of individual charges within the diamond lattice; our approach relies upon the fact that the charge induces an NV dark state which depends on the electric field orientation.
Hybrid quantum devices, in which disparate quantum elements are combined in order to achieve enhanced functionality, have received much attention in recent years due to their exciting potential to address key problems in quantum information processing, communication, and control. Specifically, significant progress has been made in the field of hybrid mechanical devices, in which a qubit is coupled to a mechanical oscillator. Strong coupling in such devices has been demonstrated with superconducting qubits, and coupling defect qubits to mechanical elements via crystal strain has enabled novel methods of qubit measurement and control. In this paper we demonstrate the fabrication of diamond optomechanical crystals with embedded nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers, a preliminary step toward reaching the quantum regime with defect qubit hybrid mechanical devices. We measure optical and mechanical resonances of diamond optomechanical crystals as well as the spin coherence of single embedded NV centers. We find that the spin has long coherence times $T_2^* = 1.5 mu s$ and $T_2 = 72 mu s$ despite its proximity to nanofabricated surfaces. Finally, we discuss potential improvements of these devices and prospects for future experiments in the quantum regime.
We employ a fiber-based optical microcavity with high finesse to study the enhancement of phonon sideband fluorescence of nitrogen-vacancy centers in nanodiamonds. Harnessing the full tunability and open access of the resonator, we explicitly demonstrate the scaling laws of the Purcell enhancement by varying both the mode volume and the quality factor over a large range. While changes in the emission lifetime remain small in the regime of a broadband emitter, we observe an increase of the emission spectral density by up to a factor of 300. This gives a direct measure of the Purcell factor that could be achieved with this resonator and an emitter whose linewidth is narrower than the cavity linewidth. Our results show a method for the realization of wavelength-tunable narrow-band single-photon sources and demonstrate a system that has the potential to reach the strong-coupling regime.
Efficient polarization of organic molecules is of extraordinary relevance when performing nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and imaging. Commercially available routes to dynamical nuclear polarization (DNP) work at extremely low-temperatures, thus bringing the molecules out of their ambient thermal conditions and relying on the solidification of organic samples. In this work we investigate polarization transfer from optically-pumped nitrogen vacancy centers in diamond to external molecules at room temperature. This polarization transfer is described by both an extensive analytical analysis and numerical simulations based on spin bath bosonization and is supported by experimental data in excellent agreement. These results set the route to hyperpolarization of diffusive molecules in different scenarios and consequently, due to increased signal, to high-resolution NMR.
We present systematic measurements of longitudinal relaxation rates ($1/T_1$) of spin polarization in the ground state of the nitrogen-vacancy (NV$^-$) color center in synthetic diamond as a function of NV$^-$ concentration and magnetic field $B$. NV$^-$ centers were created by irradiating a Type 1b single-crystal diamond along the [100] axis with 200 keV electrons from a transmission electron microscope with varying doses to achieve spots of different NV$^-$ center concentrations. Values of ($1/T_1$) were measured for each spot as a function of $B$.
We report electrical tuning by the Stark effect of the excited-state structure of single nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers located less than ~100 nm from the diamond surface. The zero-phonon line (ZPL) emission frequency is controllably varied over a range of 300 GHz. Using high-resolution emission spectroscopy, we observe electrical tuning of the strengths of both cycling and spin-altering transitions. Under resonant excitation, we apply dynamic feedback to stabilize the ZPL frequency. The transition is locked over several minutes and drifts of the peak position on timescales greater than ~100 ms are reduced to a fraction of the single-scan linewidth, with standard deviation as low as 16 MHz (obtained for an NV in bulk, ultra-pure diamond). These techniques should improve the entanglement success probability in quantum communications protocols.