The coupling between defects in diamond and a superconducting microwave resonator is studied in the nonlinear regime. Both negatively charged nitrogen-vacancy and P1 defects are explored. The measured cavity mode response exhibits strong nonlinearity near a spin resonance. Data is compared with theoretical predictions and a good agreement is obtained in a wide range of externally controlled parameters. The nonlinear effect under study in the current paper is expected to play a role in any cavity-based magnetic resonance imaging technique and to impose a fundamental limit upon its sensitivity.
Nanomechanical sensors and quantum nanosensors are two rapidly developing technologies that have diverse interdisciplinary applications in biological and chemical analysis and microscopy. For example, nanomechanical sensors based upon nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS) have demonstrated chip-scale mass spectrometry capable of detecting single macromolecules, such as proteins. Quantum nanosensors based upon electron spins of negatively-charged nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond have demonstrated diverse modes of nanometrology, including single molecule magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Here, we report the first step towards combining these two complementary technologies in the form of diamond nanomechanical structures containing NV centers. We establish the principles for nanomechanical sensing using such nano-spin-mechanical sensors (NSMS) and assess their potential for mass spectrometry and force microscopy. We predict that NSMS are able to provide unprecedented AC force images of cellular biomechanics and to, not only detect the mass of a single macromolecule, but also image its distribution. When combined with the other nanometrology modes of the NV center, NSMS potentially offer unparalleled analytical power at the nanoscale.
We report on the noise spectrum experienced by few nanometer deep nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond as a function of depth, surface coating, magnetic field and temperature. Analysis reveals a double-Lorentzian noise spectra consistent with a surface electronic spin bath, with slower dynamics due to spin-spin interactions and faster dynamics related to phononic coupling. These results shed new light on the mechanisms responsible for surface noise affecting shallow spins at semiconductor interfaces, and suggests possible directions for further studies. We demonstrate dynamical decoupling from the surface noise, paving the way to applications ranging from nanoscale NMR to quantum networks.
Nanomagnetometry using the nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centre in diamond has attracted a great deal of interest because of the combined features of room temperature operation, nanoscale resolution and high sensitivity. One of the important goals for nano-magnetometry is to be able to detect nanoscale nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) in individual molecules. Our theoretical analysis shows how a single molecule at the surface of diamond, with characteristic NMR frequencies, can be detected using a proximate NV centre on a time scale of order seconds with nanometer precision. We perform spatio-temporal resolution optimisation and also outline paths to greater sensitivity. In addition, the method is suitable for application in low and relatively inhomogeneous background magnetic fields in contrast to both conventional liquid and solid state NMR spectroscopy.
The concept of parity describes the inversion symmetry of a system and is of fundamental relevance in the standard model, quantum information processing, and field theory. In quantum electrodynamics, parity is conserved and large field gradients are required to engineer the parity of the light-matter interaction operator. In this work, we engineer a potassium-like artificial atom represented by a specifically designed superconducting flux qubit. We control the wave function parity of the artificial atom with an effective orbital momentum provided by a resonator. By irradiating the artificial atom with spatially shaped microwave fields, we select the interaction parity in situ. In this way, we observe dipole and quadrupole selection rules for single state transitions and induce transparency via longitudinal coupling. Our work advances the design of tunable artificial multilevel atoms to a new level, which is particularly promising with respect to quantum chemistry simulations with near-term superconducting circuits.
Generating robust entanglement among solid-state spins is key for applications in quantum information processing and precision sensing. We show here a dissipative approach to generate such entanglement among the hyperfine coupled electron nuclear spins using the rapid optical decay of electronic excited states. The combined dark state interference effects of the optical and microwave driving fields in the presence of spontaneous emission from the short-lived excited state leads to a dissipative formation of an entangled steady state. We show that the dissipative entanglement is generated for any initial state conditions of the spins and is resilient to external field fluctuations. We analyze the scheme both for continuous and pulsed driving fields in the presence of realistic noise sources.