Dynamics of nuclear spins at high polarizations

Chrysovalantis S. Kannis, George E. Katsoprinakis, Dimitris Sofikitis +1 more

We study the polarization dynamics of the molecular rotation and the nuclear spin in the presence of magnetic fields, in the hydrogen isotope molecules, ${\mathrm{H}}_{2},\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}{\mathrm{D}}_{2}$, and HD. If only the rotational or the nuclear angular momentum is polarized, polarization is transferred from one to the other and back in a oscillatory fashion, due to hyperfine quantum beats. Application of magnetic fields is shown to increase the frequencies of these oscillations and reduce their amplitude so that the polarization exchange can be strongly suppressed. We derive the time-averaged polarization as a function of the (static) magnetic field. Finally, we show, using continuous lasers, molecular beams, and static magnetic fields, that the molecular rotation polarization can be transferred and maintained in the nuclear spin, providing highly nuclear-spin-polarized molecules.

J. W. Jeon

Heike Schwager, J. I. Cirac, G. Giedke

In this paper, we show how to realize a quantum interface between optical fields and the polarized nuclear spins in a singly charged quantum dot, which is strongly coupled to a high-finesse optical cavity. Effective direct coupling between cavity and nuclear spins is obtained by adiabatically eliminating the (far detuned) excitonic and electronic states. The requirements for mapping qubit and continuous variable states of cavity or traveling-wave fields to the collective nuclear spin are investigated: for cavity fields, we consider adiabatic passage processes to transfer the states. It is seen that a significant improvement in cavity lifetimes beyond present-day technology would be required for a quantum interface. We then turn to a scheme that couples the nuclei to the output field of the cavity and does not require a long-lived cavity. We show that the lifetimes reported in the literature and the recently achieved nuclear polarization of ∼90% allow both high-fidelity read-out and write-in of quantum information between the nuclear spins and the output field. We discuss the performance of the scheme and provide a convenient description of the dipolar dynamics of the nuclei for highly polarized spins, demonstrating that this process does not affect the performance of our protocol.

A. E. Meyerovich, Sergey B. Stepaniants, Franck Laloë

Haiyang Li, Liao, Hao, Wang, Ping

Hyper-polarization of nuclear spins is crucial for advancing nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and quantum information technologies, as nuclear spins typically exhibit extremely low polarization at room temperature due to their small gyro-magnetic ratios. A promising approach to achieving high nuclear spin polarization is transferring the polarization of electron to nuclear spin. The nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond has emerged as a highly effective medium for this purpose, and various hyper-polarization protocols have been developed. Among these, the pulsed polarization (PulsePol) method has been extensively studied due to its robustness against static energy shifts of the electron spin. In this study, we introduce a sequential polarization protocol and identify a series of magic and digital sequences for hyper-polarizing nuclear spins. Notably, we demonstrate that some of these magic sequences exhibit significantly greater robustness compared to the PulsePol protocol in the presence of finite half $π$ pulse duration of the protocol. This enhanced robustness positions our protocol as a more suitable candidate for hyper-polarizing nuclear spins species with large gyromagnetic ratios and also ensures better compatibility with high-efficiency readout techniques at high magnetic fields. Additionally, the generality of our protocol allows for its direct application to other solid-state quantum systems beyond the NV center.

Malcolm H. Levitt