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arXiv:1210.8278 · Physical Review A

Room-temperature high-speed nuclear-spin quantum memory in diamond

Jeong Hyun Shim, I. Niemeyer, J. Zhang, Dieter Suter

Published Jan 2, 2013• 50 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Quantum memories provide intermediate storage of quantum information until it is needed for the next step of a quantum algorithm or a quantum communication process. Relevant figures of merit are therefore the fidelity with which the information can be written and retrieved, the storage time, and also the speed of the read-write process. Here, we present experimental data on a quantum memory consisting of a single ${}^{13}$C nuclear spin that is strongly coupled to the electron spin of a nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond. The strong hyperfine interaction of the nearest-neighbor carbon results in transfer times of 300 ns between the register qubit and the memory qubit, with an overall fidelity of 88$%$ for the write-storage-read cycle. The observed storage times of 3.3 ms appear to be limited by the ${T}_{1}$ relaxation of the electron spin. We discuss a possible scheme that may extend the storage time beyond this limit.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.87.012301

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Quantum memories provide intermediate storage of quantum information until it is needed for the next step of a quantum algorithm or a quantum communication process. Relevant figures of merit are therefore the fidelity with which the information can be written and retrieved, the storage time, and also the speed of the read-write process. Here, we present experimental data on a quantum memory consisting of a single 13{}^{13}13C nuclear spin that is strongly coupled to the electron spin of a nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond. The strong hyperfine interaction of the nearest-neighbor carbon results in transfer times of 300 ns between the register qubit and the memory qubit, with an overall fidelity of 88% for the write-storage-read cycle. The observed storage times of 3.3 ms appear to be limited by the T1{T}_{1}T1​ relaxation of the electron spin. We discuss a possible scheme that may extend the storage time beyond this limit.
Quantum memories are critical for solid-state quantum computing devices and a good quantum memory requires both long storage time and fast read/write operations. A promising system is the nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond, where the NV electronic spin serves as the computing qubit and a nearby nuclear spin as the memory qubit. Previous works used remote, weakly coupled 13 C nuclear spins, trading read/write speed for long storage time. Here we focus instead on the intrinsic strongly coupled 14 N nuclear spin. We first quantitatively understand its decoherence mechanism, identifying as its source the electronic spin that acts as a quantum fluctuator. We then propose a scheme to protect the quantum memory from the fluctuating noise by applying dynamical decoupling on the environment itself. We demonstrate a factor of 3 enhancement of the storage time in a proof-of-principle experiment, showing the potential for a quantum memory that combines fast operation with long coherence time.
Individual nuclear spins in diamond can be optically detected through hyperfine couplings with the electron spin of a single nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center; such nuclear spins have outstandingly long coherence times. Among the hyperfine couplings in the NV center, the nearest neighbor 13C nuclear spins have the largest coupling strength. Nearest neighbor 13C nuclear spins have the potential to perform fastest gate operations, providing highest fidelity in quantum computing. Herein, we report on the control of coherences in the NV center where all three nearest neighbor carbons are of the 13C isotope. Coherence among the three and four qubits are generated and analyzed at room temperature.
Published by IOP Publishing Ltd on behalf of Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft. Quantum memories are critical for solid-state quantum computing devices and a good quantum memory requires both long storage time and fast read/write operations. A promising system is the nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond, where the NV electronic spin serves as the computing qubit and a nearby nuclear spin as the memory qubit. Previous works used remote, weakly coupled 13C nuclear spins, trading read/write speed for long storage time. Here we focus instead on the intrinsic strongly coupled 14N nuclear spin. We first quantitatively understand its decoherence mechanism, identifying as its source the electronic spin that acts as a quantum fluctuator. We then propose a scheme to protect the quantum memory from the fluctuating noise by applying dynamical decoupling on the environment itself. We demonstrate a factor of 3 enhancement of the storage time in a proof-of-principle experiment, showing the potential for a quantum memory that combines fast operation with long coherence time.
A negatively-charged nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond is a promising system for quantum computation and quantum information. It has the diamond structure with a substitutional nitrogen atom and a neighboring vacancy. An electron spin in the NV center has an exceptionally long coherence time at room temperature. Thus the NV center has a potential to realize a room-temperature quantum computer which is more efficient than a classical computer. In this dissertation, we focus on the nitrogen nuclear spin as well as the electron spin in the NV center. Every NV center has the nitrogen nuclear spin. Because of the long coherence time of the nitrogen nuclear spin, it is a good candidate for a quantum memory. Thus it is important to prepare the nitrogen nuclear spin qubit in a given pure state for quantum computation. We provide a theoretical understanding of the popular nuclear spin initialization technique. Furthermore, we propose an optimal condition for the initialization of the nitrogen nuclear spin by including the local strain in the NV center. We expect that this optimal condition can improve the purity of the nuclear spin initialization. We also propose an efficient quantum measurement protocol for the hyperfine interaction between the electron spin and the ¹⁵N nuclear spin in the NV center. A precise knowledge of the hyperfine interaction is important to reduce an error in a coherent control of the ¹⁵N nuclear spin. In this protocol, a sequence of quantum operations with successively increasing duration is utilized to estimate the hyperfine interaction with successively higher precision approaching the quantum metrology limit. Unlike common quantum metrological methods, this protocol does not need the preparation of the nuclear spin in a pure state. In the presence of realistic operation errors and electron spin decoherence, we show the overall precision of our protocol still surpasses the standard quantum limit
Robust entanglement at room temperature is a central challenge for solid-state quantum information processing and quantum-enhanced sensing. Here we demonstrate room-temperature storage of entanglement in a silicon carbide (SiC) quantum node by coherently transferring an electron-nuclear entangled state onto long-lived nuclear-spin memory qubits. Using a shallow single color center in 4H-SiC, conventionally denoted PL6, we realize a fully addressable three-qubit register composed of one electron-spin processor and two strongly coupled 29^{29}29Si nuclear-spin memory qubits. This platform enables the deterministic generation of high-fidelity entangled states, including a nuclear-spin Bell state with a fidelity of 94±2%94 \pm 2\%94±2% and a three-qubit Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ)-type state with a fidelity of 89±4%89 \pm 4\%89±4%. By implementing a SWAP-gate protocol in the strong hyperfine-coupling regime, the electron-nuclear entanglement is transferred to the nuclear-spin memory with a fidelity of 92.5±2.5%92.5 \pm 2.5\%92.5±2.5%, extending the entanglement lifetime by a factor of 240. We further confirm the generality of this approach in an additional heterogeneous 29^{29}29Si-13^{13}13C nuclear-spin register and, through a statistical survey of 200 single PL6 centers, show that multi-nuclear-spin registers occur naturally with probabilities above 10%. These results position shallow SiC color centers as a powerful platform for entanglement-assisted quantum sensing and scalable room-temperature quantum technologies.
Digital information based on the laws of quantum mechanics promisses powerful new ways of computation and communication. However, quantum information is very fragile; inevitable errors continuously build up and eventually all information is lost. Therefore, realistic large-scale quantum information processing requires the protection of quantum bits (qubits) against errors. In this thesis we present the experimental implementation of quantum error correction protocols based on spins in diamond. In such protocols, a quantum state is protected against errors by encoding in multiple qubits. Errors can be detected and corrected by measurement of correlations, so-called stabilizer-measurements, on these qubits.The experimental work presented in this thesis employs multiple spins in diamond as qubits to explore and implement error correction protocols. The nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centre in diamond is a lattice defect consisting of a nitrogen atom (N) and a vacancy (V) on two adjacent diamond lattice sites. This defect effectively results in an electronic spin that can be addressed as a qubit. The spin state can be manipulated by microwave fields and optically read out. At liquid helium temperatures (cryogenic temperature, ~4 K = -269 C), the NV electron spin provides high-fidelity single-shot readout and long coherence times.The NV centre is surrounded by naturally available (1.1% abundance) nuclear C13 spins. As the number of spins that are close enough to the NV centre to be strongly coupled is limited, we employ the weakly coupled nuclear spins in the spin bath of the NV centre. Using dynamical decoupling techniques these nuclear spins can be detected via the NV electron spin through the hyperfine interaction. The nuclear spins are long-lived and robust against optical excitation of the NV electron spin, which can make these spins a robust quantum register for quantum error correction.In Ch. 4 we demonstrate universal control over multiple of such weakly coupled nuclear C13 spins in the environment of the NV centre at ambient temperatures. We demonstrate initialization, control and read-out of individual nuclear spins. Finally, we implement a quantum error correction protocol by encoding a quantum state in the NV electron spin and two nuclear spins. Errors are detected by un-encoding the quantum state back to the electron spin and correction via a double controlled operation.For universal fault-tolerant quantum computations it is essential that the quantum information remains encoded at all times. In Ch. 5 we present multiple rounds of quantum error correction and active feedback on a continuously encoded qubit at cryogenic temperatures. A quantum state is protected by encoding in three weakly coupled spins. Errors are detected via high-fidelity non-demolition readout of the NV electron spin and actively corrected using fast classical electronics. We demonstrate that an actively error-corrected qubit is robust against phase flip errors and show that a superposition state can live longer than the best physical qubit in the encoding.The presented methods and results can be extended to a range of future experiments. In Ch. 6 we propose the implementation of five-qubit quantum error correction, the smallest code to correct for general single-qubit errors on the physical qubits in the encoding, by extending the experimental methods as developed in Chs. 4&5. Besides the exploration and development of larger error correction protocols and fault-tolerant quantum computing, the presented quantum register based in spins in diamond can be employed as a quantum node and combined with recent advances in the realization of quantum entanglement over large distances to form quantum networks. These networks can be used to study both fundamental questions as well as future applications in quantum information technology.