The ground state spin of the negatively charged nitrogen-vacancy center in diamond has many exciting applications in quantum metrology and solid state quantum information processing, including magnetometry, electrometry, quantum memory and quantum op
tical networks. Each of these applications involve the interaction of the spin with some configuration of electric, magnetic and strain fields, however, to date there does not exist a detailed model of the spins interactions with such fields, nor an understanding of how the fields influence the time-evolution of the spin and its relaxation and inhomogeneous dephasing. In this work, a general solution is obtained for the spin in any given electric-magnetic-strain field configuration for the first time, and the influence of the fields on the evolution of the spin is examined. Thus, this work provides the essential theoretical tools for the precise control and modeling of this remarkable spin in its current and future applications.
The ground state spin of the negatively charged nitrogen-vacancy center in diamond has been the platform for the recent rapid expansion of new frontiers in quantum metrology and solid state quantum information processing. In ambient conditions, the s
pin has been demonstrated to be a high precision magnetic and electric field sensor as well as a solid state qubit capable of coupling with nearby nuclear and electronic spins. However, in spite of its many outstanding demonstrations, the theory of the spin has not yet been fully developed and there does not currently exist thorough explanations for many of its properties, such as the anisotropy of the electron g-factor and the existence of Stark effects and strain splittings. In this work, the theory of the ground state spin is fully developed for the first time using the molecular orbital theory of the center in order to provide detailed explanations for the spins fine and hyperfine structures and its interactions with electric, magnetic and strain fields.
Two proof-of-principle experiments towards T1-limited magnetic resonance imaging with NV centers in diamond are demonstrated. First, a large number of Rabi oscillations is measured and it is demonstrated that the hyperfine interaction due to the NVs
14N can be extracted from the beating oscillations. Second, the Rabi beats under V-type microwave excitation of the three hyperfine manifolds is studied experimentally and described theoretically.
