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arXiv:1011.1217 · Physical Review Letters

Rapid and Robust Spin State Amplification

Tom Close, Femi Fadugba, Simon C. Benjamin, Joseph F. Fitzsimons, Brendon W. Lovett

Published Apr 22, 2011• 9 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Electron and nuclear spins have been employed in many of the early demonstrations of quantum technology. However, applications in real world quantum technology are limited by the difficulty of measuring single spins. Here we show that it is possible to rapidly and robustly amplify a spin state using a lattice of ancillary spins. The model we employ corresponds to an extremely simple experimental system: a homogenous Ising-coupled spin lattice in one, two, or three dimensions, driven by a continuous microwave field. We establish that the process can operate at finite temperature (imperfect initial polarization) and under the effects of various forms of decoherence.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.106.167204

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Electron and nuclear spins have been employed in many of the early demonstrations of quantum technology. However, applications in real world quantum technology are limited by the difficulty of measuring single spins. Here we show that it is possible to rapidly and robustly amplify a spin state using a lattice of ancillary spins. The model we employ corresponds to an extremely simple experimental system: a homogenous Ising-coupled spin lattice in one, two, or three dimensions, driven by a continuous microwave field. We establish that the process can operate at finite temperature (imperfect initial polarization) and under the effects of various forms of decoherence.
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Nuclear spins in certain solids couple weakly to their environment, making them attractive candidates for quantum information processing and inertial sensing. When coupled to the spin of an optically active electron, nuclear spins can be rapidly polarized, controlled, and read via lasers and radio-frequency (rf) fields. Possessing typical coherence times of several milliseconds at room temperature, nuclear spins hosted by a nitrogen-vacancy center in diamond are thus intriguing systems to observe how classical physical rotation at quantum timescales affects a quantum system. In this work, we demonstrate optical nuclear-spin polarization and rapid quantum control of nuclear spins in a diamond physically rotating at 1kHz1\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}\mathrm{kHz}1kHz, faster than the nuclear-spin coherence time. Free from the need to maintain strict field alignment, we are able to measure and control nuclear spins in the presence of a large, time-varying magnetic field that makes an angle of more than ${100}^{\ensuremath{\circ}}$ to the nitrogen-lattice vacancy axis. The field induces spin mixing between the electron and nuclear states of the qubits, decoupling them from oscillating rf fields. We are able to demonstrate that coherent spin state control is possible at any point of the rotation. We combine continuous dynamical decoupling with feed-forward control to eliminate decoherence induced by imperfect mechanical rotation. Our work liberates a previously inaccessible degree of freedom of the NV nuclear spin, unlocking new approaches to quantum control and rotation sensing.
A long-lived qubit is usually well-isolated from all other systems and the environments, and so is not easy to couple with measurement apparatus. It is sometimes difficult to implement reliable projective measurements on such a qubit. One potential solution is spin amplification with many ancillary qubits. Here, we propose a spin amplification technique, where the ancillary qubits state change depending on the state of the target qubit. The technique works even in the presence of inhomogeneous broadening. We show that fast and accurate amplification is possible even if the coupling and frequency of the ancillary qubits is inhomogeneous. Since our scheme is robust against realistic imperfections, this could provide a new mechanism for reading out a single spin that could not have been measured using the previous approaches.
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Building scalable quantum information systems is a central challenge facing modern science. Single spins in diamond are a promising platform for distributed quantum information networks and precision measurements. I will discuss recent progress in this field demonstrating coherent operations with coupled electron-nuclear spin quantum registers and nanoscale precision magnetometry. Our experiments demonstrate addressing, preparation, and coherent control of individual nuclear spin qubits in the diamond lattice at room temperature. We have measured spin coherence times exceeding milliseconds, and observed coherent coupling to nearby electronic and nuclear spins. Robust initialization of a two-qubit register and transfer of arbitrary quantum states between electron and nuclear spin qubits has been achieved. Our results show that coherent operations are possible with individual solid-state qubits whose coherence properties approach those for isolated atoms and ions. The resulting electron-nuclear few-qubit registers can potentially serve as small processor nodes in a quantum network where the electron spins are coupled by optical photons.
Quantum information processed in strongly correlated states of matter can provide built in hardware protection against errors. We may encode information in highly non local degrees of freedom, such as using three dimensional spin lattices for subsystem codes or two dimensional spin lattices for topologically ordered surface codes and measurement based codes. Recently, in [L. Jiang et al., Nature Physics {\bf 4}, 482 (2008)] the authors showed how to manipulate these global degrees of freedom using optical lattices coupled to a bosonic degree of freedom via a cavity. We elaborate on these ideas and recapitulate two approaches to implement many body gates necessary for quantum information processing, both relying on controlled interactions of an ancillary cavity mode with the spin system and single ancilla particles. The main focus of the present paper is to analyze the effect of imperfections such a cavity decay and collective and individual spin decoherence. We present strategies to fight decoherence by monitoring cavity decay and show that high gate fidelities can be achieved in the strong coupling regime of cavity-QED with state of the art parameters.