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Chinese Physics Letters

Electron Spin Decoherence of Nitrogen-Vacancy Center Coupled to Multiple Spin Baths

Jian Ping Xing, Yanchun Chang, Ning Wang, Gang‐Qin Liu, Xinyu Pan

Published Oct 1, 2016• 3 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We present the experimental results of nitrogen-vacancy (NV) electron spin decoherence, which are linked to the coexistence of electron spin bath of nitrogen impurity (P1 center) and 13 C nuclear spin bath. In previous works, only one dominant decoherence source is studied: P1 electron spin bath for type-Ib diamond; or 13 C nuclear spin bath for type-IIa diamond. In general, the thermal fluctuation from both spin baths can be eliminated by the Hahn echo sequence, resulting in a long coherence time ( T 2 ) of about 400 μs. However, in a high-purity type-IIa diamond where 13 C nuclear spin bath is the dominant decoherence source, dramatic decreases of NV electron spin T 2 time caused by P1 electron spin bath are observed under certain magnetic field. We further apply the engineered Hahn echo sequence to confirm the decoherence mechanism of multiple spin baths and quantitatively estimate the contribution of P1 electron spin bath. Our results are helpful to understand the NV decoherence mechanisms, which will benefit quantum computing and quantum metrology.

DOI
10.1088/0256-307x/33/10/107601

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We present the experimental results of nitrogen-vacancy (NV) electron spin decoherence, which are linked to the coexistence of electron spin bath of nitrogen impurity (P1 center) and 13 C nuclear spin bath. In previous works, only one dominant decoherence source is studied: P1 electron spin bath for type-Ib diamond; or 13 C nuclear spin bath for type-IIa diamond. In general, the thermal fluctuation from both spin baths can be eliminated by the Hahn echo sequence, resulting in a long coherence time ( T 2 ) of about 400 μs. However, in a high-purity type-IIa diamond where 13 C nuclear spin bath is the dominant decoherence source, dramatic decreases of NV electron spin T 2 time caused by P1 electron spin bath are observed under certain magnetic field. We further apply the engineered Hahn echo sequence to confirm the decoherence mechanism of multiple spin baths and quantitatively estimate the contribution of P1 electron spin bath. Our results are helpful to understand the NV decoherence mechanisms, which will benefit quantum computing and quantum metrology.
Abstract Nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond have been developed into essential hardware units for a wide range of solid-state-based quantum technology applications. While such applications require the long spin coherence times of the NV centers, they are often limited due to decoherence. In this study, we theoretically investigate the decoherence of NV-spin ensembles induced by nitrogen impurities (P1 centers), which are one of the most dominant and inevitable magnetic field noise sources in diamond. We combined cluster correlation expansion and density functional theory to compute the Hahn-echo spin-coherence time of the NV centers for a broad range of P1 concentrations. Results indicate a clear linear dependence of T2 on P1 concentrations on a log scale with a slope of −1.06, which is in excellent agreement with previous experimental results. The interplay between the Jahn–Teller effect and the hyperfine interaction in the P1 center plays a critical role in determining the bath dynamics and the resulting NV decoherence. Our results provide a theoretical upper bound for the NV-spin T2 over a wide range of P1 densities, serving as a key reference for materials optimization and spin bath characterization to develop highly coherent NV-based devices for quantum information technology.
Decoherence is the biggest bottleneck in all quantum technologies. For nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond, the loss of coherence is caused by the electron and nuclear spin bath of the diamond lattice. Here, we demonstrate that the spin bath - that typically causes decoherence - entangles the spin states of the NV electron and the host 14^{14}14N nucleus. The many-body interaction between the 14^{14}14N nucleus - electron - bath spins at an energy level anti-crossing occurring for an applied magnetic field orientation perpendicular to the NV axis is responsible for this effect. This is observed experimentally in NV ensembles via electron spin-echo measurements, where the echo envelope is modulated at the frequency of a 14^{14}14N nuclear spin transition. Using numerical simulations, we show that the spin bath coupling to the NV centers is essential for observing this modulation. Due to the zero first-order Zeeman effect at the anti-crossing, the observed oscillations have long spin-echo coherence times, 2--3 times those at the parallel magnetic field orientation. The oscillation frequency is highly stable and robust against environmental fluctuations. These findings provide new opportunities for fundamental studies of many-body physics and quantum sensing.
We study decoherence of a single nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center induced by the 13C nuclear spin bath of diamond. By comparing Hahn-Echo experiments on single and double-quantum transitions of the NV triplet ground state we demonstrate that this bath can be tuned into two different regimes. At low magnetic fields, the nuclei behave as a quantum bath which causes decoherence by entangling with the NV central spin. At high magnetic fields, the bath behaves as a source of classical magnetic field noise, which creates decoherence by imprinting a random phase on the NV central spin.
ABSTRACT The negatively charged nitrogen‐vacancy (NV) center in diamond has emerged as a leading qubit platform. One of the key challenges for NV‐based quantum applications is building an accurate model to predict their decoherence properties. In this study, a combination of theory and experiment is used to investigate NV decoherence dynamics in the presence of P1 center baths. A cluster‐correlation expansion method to compute the decoherence under the Hahn‐echo and CPMG pulse sequences at various P1 concentrations from 1 to 300 ppm is employed. Notably, we find that the coherence time ( T 2 ) scales quadratically as a function of the pulse number, on a logarithmic scale, as opposed to the linear scaling predicted by widely accepted semi‐classical theories. In this experiment, the CPMG signal for two diamond samples with high P1 concentrations of 0.8 and 13 ppm is measured. It is demonstrated that the T 2 scaling is indeed quadratic, thus confirming our theoretical predictions. These results show that the quantum bath model combined with the CCE method can accurately capture the quantum nature of the P1‐driven NV decoherence. This study opens a new avenue for developing a complete noise model that can be used to optimize the performance of NV‐based quantum devices.
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.
The decoherence of quantum objects is a critical issue in quantum science and technology. It is generally believed that stronger noise causes faster decoherence. Strikingly, recent theoretical work suggests that under certain conditions, the opposite is true for spins in quantum baths. Here we report an experimental observation of an anomalous decoherence effect for the electron spin-1 of a nitrogen-vacancy centre in high-purity diamond at room temperature. We demonstrate that, under dynamical decoupling, the double-transition can have longer coherence time than the single-transition even though the former couples to the nuclear spin bath as twice strongly as the latter does. The excellent agreement between the experimental and theoretical results confirms the controllability of the weakly coupled nuclear spins in the bath, which is useful in quantum information processing and quantum metrology. Quantum objects are subject to decoherence effects due to the surrounding environment. This study demonstrates experimentally a counterintuitive example of anomalous decoherence, in which electron spins residing at nitrogen vacancy centres in diamond display longer coherence times under stronger noises.