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arXiv:2309.04126 · Physical Review Letters

Hyperfine Spectroscopy and Fast, All-Optical Arbitrary State Initialization and Readout of a Single, Ten-Level Ge 73 Vacancy Nuclear Spin Qudit in Diamond

Chris Adambukulam, Brett C. Johnson, Andrea Morello, Arne Laucht

Published Feb 9, 2024• 14 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

A high-spin nucleus coupled to a color center can act as a long-lived memory qudit in a spin-photon interface. The germanium vacancy (GeV) in diamond has attracted recent attention due to its excellent spectral properties and provides access to the ten-dimensional Hilbert space of the I=9/2 ^{73}Ge nucleus. Here, we observe the ^{73}GeV hyperfine structure, perform nuclear spin readout, and optically initialize the ^{73}Ge spin into any eigenstate on a μs timescale and with a fidelity of up to ∼84%. Our results establish ^{73}GeV as an optically addressable high-spin quantum platform for a high-efficiency spin-photon interface as well as for foundational quantum physics and metrology.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.132.060603

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A high-spin nucleus coupled to a color center can act as a long-lived memory qudit in a spin-photon interface. The germanium vacancy (GeV) in diamond has attracted recent attention due to its excellent spectral properties and provides access to the ten-dimensional Hilbert space of the I=9/2 ^{73}Ge nucleus. Here, we observe the ^{73}GeV hyperfine structure, perform nuclear spin readout, and optically initialize the ^{73}Ge spin into any eigenstate on a μs timescale and with a fidelity of up to ∼84%. Our results establish ^{73}GeV as an optically addressable high-spin quantum platform for a high-efficiency spin-photon interface as well as for foundational quantum physics and metrology.
The silicon-vacancy (SiV-) color center in diamond has attracted attention because of its unique optical properties. It exhibits spectral stability and indistinguishability that facilitate efficient generation of photons capable of demonstrating quantum interference. Here we show optical initialization and readout of electronic spin in a single SiV- center with a spin relaxation time of T1=2.4±0.2 ms. Coherent population trapping (CPT) is used to demonstrate coherent preparation of dark superposition states with a spin coherence time of T2⋆=35±3 ns. This is fundamentally limited by orbital relaxation, and an understanding of this process opens the way to extend coherence by engineering interactions with phonons. Hyperfine structure is observed in CPT measurements with the 29Si isotope which allows access to nuclear spin. These results establish the SiV- center as a solid-state spin-photon interface.
Quantum networks offer a way to overcome the size and complexity limitations of single quantum devices by linking multiple nodes into a scalable architecture. Group-IV color centers in diamond, paired with long-lived nuclear spins, have emerged as promising building blocks demonstrating proof-of-concept experiments such as blind quantum computing and quantum-enhanced sensing. However, realizing a large-scale electro-nuclear register remains a major challenge. Here we establish the germanium-vacancy (GeV) center as a viable platform for such network nodes. Using correlation spectroscopy, we identify single nuclear spins within a convoluted spin environment, overcoming limitations imposed by the color center's spin-1/21/21/2 nature and thereby enabling indirect control of these nuclear spins. We further demonstrate high-fidelity single-shot readout of both the GeV center (95.8 %95.8\,\%95.8%) and a neighboring 13C{}^{13}\text{C}13C nuclear spin (93.7 %93.7\,\%93.7%), a key tool for feed-forward error correction. These critical advances position the GeV center as a compelling candidate for next-generation quantum network nodes.
The germanium vacancy in diamond (GeV) is a promising candidate for color center based quantum networking. Yet, like for other group-IV vacancy defects in diamond, achieving fast, high-fidelity qubit operations using traditional magnetic resonance techniques is experimentally challenging due to a weak magnetic dipole and susceptibility to thermally induced decoherence. Here, we perform all-optical control of the GeV and realize Rabi frequencies exceeding ∼ 20 MHz. We do so by driving the two Λ -systems of the GeV simultaneously and apply this to probe the spin coherence ( T 2 * = 224 ± 14 ns, T 2 H = 11.9 ± 0.3 µ s ). Our control scheme is applicable to other color centers and particularly, other group-IV defects for which the scheme may be optimized to improve all-optical control in these systems.
A quantum register coupled to a spin-photon interface is a key component in quantum communication and information processing.Group-IV color centers in diamond (SiV -, GeV -, and SnV -) are promising candidates for this application, comprising an electronic spin with optical transitions coupled to a nuclear spin as the quantum register.However, the creation of a quantum register for these color centers with deterministic and strong coupling to the spin-photon interface remains challenging.Here, we make first-principles predictions of the hyperfine parameters of the group-IV color centers, which we verify experimentally with a comprehensive comparison between the spectra of spin active and spin neutral intrinsic dopant nuclei in single GeV -and SnV -emitters.In line with the theoretical predictions, detailed spectroscopy on large sample sizes reveals that hyperfine coupling causes a splitting of the optical transition of SnV -an order of magnitude larger than the optical line width and provides a magnetic field insensitive transition.This strong coupling provides access to a new regime for quantum registers in diamond color centers, opening avenues for novel spin-photon entanglement and quantum sensing schemes for these well-studied emitters.
Long distance quantum networking requires combining efficient spin-photon interfaces with long-lived local memories. Group-IV color centers in diamond (SiV, GeV, and SnV) are promising candidates for this application, containing an electronic spin-photon interface and dopant nuclear spin memory. Recent work has demonstrated state-of-the-art performance in spin-photon coupling and spin-spin entanglement. However, coupling between the electron and nuclear spins introduces a phase kickback during optical excitation that limits the utility of the nuclear memory. Here, we propose using the large hyperfine coupling of SnV-117 to operate the device at zero magnetic field in a regime where the memory is insensitive to optical excitation. We further demonstrate ground state spin control of a SnV-117 color center integrated in a photonic integrated circuit, showing 97.8% gate fidelity and 2.5 ms coherence time for the memory spin level. This shows the viability of the zero-field protocol for high fidelity operation, and lays the groundwork for building quantum network nodes with SnV-117 devices.