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Physical Review A

Optical manipulation of the negative silicon-vacancy center in diamond

Michael Hanks, William J. Munro, Kae Nemoto

Published Aug 24, 2020• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

The silicon-vacancy center in diamond has recently attracted significant attention as a candidate for quantum information processing as it overcomes many of the optical issues present in the nitrogen-vacancy center. Historically it has been hampered by short dephasing times; however the recent development of high-purity samples at low temperatures resolves this issue. Hence it is timely to explore whether silicon-vacancy centers are useful for quantum tasks beyond single-photon sources. Here we investigate the potential of the silicon-vacancy center to realize two important operations required for quantum information processing: high-efficiency projective measurement and efficient single-qubit rotations. Due to its similar nature, the germanium-vacancy center is discussed as a point of comparison.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.102.022616

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The silicon-vacancy center in diamond has recently attracted significant attention as a candidate for quantum information processing as it overcomes many of the optical issues present in the nitrogen-vacancy center. Historically it has been hampered by short dephasing times; however the recent development of high-purity samples at low temperatures resolves this issue. Hence it is timely to explore whether silicon-vacancy centers are useful for quantum tasks beyond single-photon sources. Here we investigate the potential of the silicon-vacancy center to realize two important operations required for quantum information processing: high-efficiency projective measurement and efficient single-qubit rotations. Due to its similar nature, the germanium-vacancy center is discussed as a point of comparison.
The negatively charged silicon-vacancy center (SiV) in diamond is a potential high-quality source of single-indistinguishable photons for quantum information processing and quantum electrodynamics applications[1]. Protected by inversion symmetry, the SiV possesses bright narrow-band and spectrally stable optical transition. However, when embedded in bulk diamond, this emitter suffers from relatively low extraction efficiency attributed to total internal reflection as well as nondeterministic location. On the other hand, its implementation in nanodiamonds or nanostructures prepared by a top-down approach can mitigate the issue of total internal reflection, but impeded by optical dephasing owing to their degraded surface quality.
Development of quantum information processing requires realization of solid state structures able to manipulate light or matter quantum bits. One of the promising candidates for been active elements of such solid-state platform are color centers in diamond. The most famous nitrogen-vacancy color center has number of attractive features and found a lot of applications in sensing and imaging. Still, it has number of considerable disadvantages, among which it sensitivity to the surface damages and thus its incompatibility with nanostructures. On another side implementation of nano- and micro- structures enabled considerable progress in manipulation of light quanta. In particular photonic crystal cavities allowed to realize strong coupling of cavity and spin system. This led to demonstration of efficient light collection and realization of simple quantum gates with artificial or real atoms. Novel color centers such as silicon-vacancy or germanium-vacancy color center due to inversion symmetry of the electron structure are not sensitive to the surface damages and presence of surface nearby. Thus, those are perfect candidates for been combined with photonic crystal structures. Novel technologies enabled growing of the nanodiamonds of ultra-small size having well-defined color center inside. Along with techniques to position those precisely on the nano- and micro structures these achievements opened opportunity to integrate high-fines photonic-crystal cavities with the germanium-vacancy containing nanocrystals thus forming fully solid-state platform for quantum manipulation of light. In my talk I will describe our progress towards realization of this ambitious goal.
Nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond have recently emerged as a unique platform for fundamental studies in quantum information and nanoscience. The special properties of these impurity centers allow robust, room-temperature operation of solid-state qubits and have enabled several remarkable demonstrations in quantum information processing and precision nanoscale sensing. This article reviews the recent advances in magnetic and optical manipulation of the NV center’s quantum spin and their importance for prospective applications. We discuss how quantum control of individual centers can be harnessed for the protection of NV-center spin coherence, for multiqubit quantum operations in the presence of decoherence, and for high-fidelity initialization and readout. We also discuss the progress in resonant optical control, which has led to interfaces between spin and photonic qubits and may lead to spin networks based on diamond photonics. Many of these recently developed diamond-based technologies constitute critical components for the future leap toward practical multiqubit devices.
Nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond typically have spin-conserving optical transitions, a feature which allows for optical detection of the long-lived electronic spin states through fluorescence detection. However, by applying stress to a sample it is possible to obtain spin-nonconserving transitions in which a single excited state couples to multiple ground states. Here we describe two-frequency optical spectroscopy on single nitrogen-vacancy centers in a high-purity diamond sample at low temperature. When stress is applied to the sample it is possible to observe coherent population trapping with a single center. By adjusting the stress it is possible to obtain a situation in which all of the transitions from the three ground sublevels to a common excited state are strongly allowed. These results show that all-optical spin manipulation is possible for this system, and we propose that that by coupling single centers to optical microcavities, a scalable quantum network could be realized for photonic quantum information processing.
In the last decade atom-sized point defects in diamond, so called colour centres, have proven to be suitable systems for quantum information processing as well as quantum communication and sensing applications. Besides the wellknown nitrogen vacancy centre, the negatively charged silicon vacancy centre has recently proven to be a promising candidate due to its superior spectral properties such as narrow zero-phonon line widths and small phonon sidebands. In this feature article (article No.201700586) the authors summarize the center's electronic and optical properties as well as recent advances in controlling its quantum state using microwave as well as ultrafast all-optical control techniques which make it accessible for future quantum information processing applications. Moreover, the authors outline potential future experimental directions to improve the center's coherence time scale which so far is limited by phonon-induced decoherence. The cover picture shows an artistic representation of the silicon vacancy centre with its inversion-symmetric structure in a diamond crystal being addressed by an ultrashort laser pulse.
In recent years there has been substantial progress in solid-state quantum information demonstrations based on diamond. This ranges from room-temperature multi-qubit quantum registers to spin-photon entanglement to loophole-free Bell tests. Most of these demonstrations are done with the nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center. Recently however the silicon-vacancy (SiV) center has shown a much better coupling to photons, owing to the suppression of spectral diffusion. Still more recently the germanium-vacancy (GeV) has shown much higher quantum efficiency the SiV. However there are tradeoffs. In this talk I will review the various options for quantum information devices in diamond. I will also discuss new options for the future, including designer color centers made possible by novel diamond growth techniques.