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arXiv:1409.3786 · Physical Review Letters

Protecting a Solid-State Spin from Decoherence Using Dressed Spin States

D. Andrew Golter, Thomas K. Baldwin, Hailin Wang

Published Dec 3, 2014• 79 citations
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Abstract

We report experimental studies of dressing an electron spin in diamond with resonant and continuous microwave fields to protect the electron spin from magnetic fluctuations induced by the nuclear spin bath. We use optical coherent population trapping (CPT) to probe the energy level structure, optically induced spin transitions, and spin decoherence rates of the dressed spin states. Dressing an electron spin with resonant microwaves at a coupling rate near 1 MHz leads to a 50 times reduction in the linewidth of the spin transition underlying the CPT process, limited by transit-time broadening. Compared with dynamical decoupling, where effects of the bath are averaged out at specific times, the dressed spin state provides a continuous protection from decoherence.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.113.237601

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We report experimental studies of dressing an electron spin in diamond with resonant and continuous microwave fields to protect the electron spin from magnetic fluctuations induced by the nuclear spin bath. We use optical coherent population trapping (CPT) to probe the energy level structure, optically induced spin transitions, and spin decoherence rates of the dressed spin states. Dressing an electron spin with resonant microwaves at a coupling rate near 1 MHz leads to a 50 times reduction in the linewidth of the spin transition underlying the CPT process, limited by transit-time broadening. Compared with dynamical decoupling, where effects of the bath are averaged out at specific times, the dressed spin state provides a continuous protection from decoherence.
By choosing the right system and using the right techniques, it is possible to achieve reliable control of an individual quantum system in a solid. Certain atom-like solid-state systems are especially suited for this goal. The electron spin of the diamond nitrogen-vacancy (NV) impurity center is a leader among such systems and has featured in a great deal of recent experimental work in the context of various quantum technologies. By extending optical control for the NV center we increase the utility of this system, opening it up to fresh applications in quantum optics. \n \nDoing quantum control with a solid-state spin comes with its own challenges. In particular it can be difficult to simultaneously isolate single systems, both for control and from environment-induced decoherence, while also coupling multiple systems together in a controlled way. A goal of the work presented in this dissertation is to develop techniques for answering this problem in the NV center. \n \nOptical control, as opposed to the microwave control usually used for state manipulation in the NV center, would make it easier to address only one spin system at a time. We demonstrate such control using two methods, two-photon optically driven Rabi oscillations and stimulated Raman adiabatic passage. These both have the added advantage that by using Raman-resonant, dipole-detuned optical fields, they protect the spin state from the decoherence normally associated with the optical transitions. Furthermore, we see that this electron spin control is nuclear spin dependent, providing a mechanism for coupling these two spin systems. \n \nWe also investigate a decoherence reduction technique that involves coupling continuous microwave fields to the spin states. The resulting "dressed states" are shielded from spin-bath-induced magnetic field fluctuations. We confirm this using optical coherent population trapping measurements which we have also developed in the NV center. We show that these measurements are sensitive to nuclear spin states as well as to dressed states. \n \nThese results supply the missing piece, optical spin manipulation, to control schemes that are all-optical, and they demonstrate ways to significantly push back the decoherence limit. \n \nThis dissertation includes previously published and unpublished co-authored material.
Coherent population trapping (CPT) provides a highly sensitive means for probing the energy-level structure of an atomic system. For a nitrogen-vacancy center in diamond, the CPT offers an alternative to the standard optically detected magnetic resonance method for measuring the hyperfine structure of the electronic ground states. We show that the nuclear-spin-dependent CPT measures directly the hyperfine splitting of these states due to the 14{}^{14}14N nuclear spin. The CPT spectral response obtained in the presence of a strong microwave field, resonant or nearly resonant with a ground-state spin transition, maps out the dynamic Stark splitting induced by the coherent spin excitation.
We show that a quantum interference effect in optical absorption from two electronic spin states of a solid-state emitter can be used to prepare the surrounding environment of nuclear spins in well-defined states, thereby suppressing electronic spin dephasing. The coupled electron-nuclei system evolves into a coherent population trapping state by optical-excitation-induced nuclear-spin diffusion for a broad range of initial optical detunings. The spectroscopic signature of this evolution where the single-electron strongly modifies its environment is a drastic broadening of the dark resonance in optical absorption experiments. The large difference in electronic and nuclear time scales allows us to verify the preparation of nuclear spins in the desired state.
We theoretically study the decoherence and the dynamical decoupling control of nitrogen vacancy center electron spins in high-purity diamond, where the hyperfine interaction with 13{}^{13}13C nuclear spins is the dominating decoherence mechanism. The decoherence is formulated as the entanglement between the electron spin and the nuclear spins, which is induced by nuclear spin bath evolution conditioned on the electron spin state. The nuclear spin bath evolution is driven by elementary processes such as single spin precession and pairwise flip flops. The importance of different elementary processes in the decoherence depends on the strength of the external magnetic field.
Decoherence limits the physical realization of qubits, and its mitigation is critical for the development of quantum science and technology. We construct a robust qubit embedded in a decoherence-protected subspace, obtained by applying microwave dressing to a clock transition of the ground-state electron spin of a silicon carbide divacancy defect. The qubit is universally protected from magnetic, electric, and temperature fluctuations, which account for nearly all relevant decoherence channels in the solid state. This culminates in an increase of the qubit's inhomogeneous dephasing time by more than four orders of magnitude (to >22 milliseconds), while its Hahn-echo coherence time approaches 64 milliseconds. Requiring few key platform-independent components, this result suggests that substantial coherence improvements can be achieved in a wide selection of quantum architectures.
We demonstrate coherent population trapping of a single nuclear spin in a room-temperature solid. To this end, we exploit a three-level system with a Λ configuration in the microwave domain, which consists of nuclear spin states addressed through their hyperfine coupling to the electron spin of a single nitrogen-vacancy defect in diamond. Moreover, the Λ-scheme relaxation is externally controlled through incoherent optical pumping and separated in time from consecutive coherent microwave excitations. Such a scheme allows us (i) to monitor the sequential accumulation of population into the dark state and (ii) to reach a novel regime of coherent population trapping dynamics for which periodic arrays of dark resonances can be observed, owing to multiple constructive interferences. This Letter offers new prospects for quantum state preparation, information storage in hybrid quantum systems, and metrology.