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Protecting solid-state spins from a strongly coupled environment

Mo Chen, Won Kyu Calvin Sun, Kasturi Saha, Jean-Christophe Jaskula, Paola Cappellaro

Published Jun 1, 2018• 13 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

Published by IOP Publishing Ltd on behalf of Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft. Quantum memories are critical for solid-state quantum computing devices and a good quantum memory requires both long storage time and fast read/write operations. A promising system is the nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond, where the NV electronic spin serves as the computing qubit and a nearby nuclear spin as the memory qubit. Previous works used remote, weakly coupled 13C nuclear spins, trading read/write speed for long storage time. Here we focus instead on the intrinsic strongly coupled 14N nuclear spin. We first quantitatively understand its decoherence mechanism, identifying as its source the electronic spin that acts as a quantum fluctuator. We then propose a scheme to protect the quantum memory from the fluctuating noise by applying dynamical decoupling on the environment itself. We demonstrate a factor of 3 enhancement of the storage time in a proof-of-principle experiment, showing the potential for a quantum memory that combines fast operation with long coherence time.

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Spin qubit coherence is a fundamental resource for the realization of quantum technologies. For solid-state platforms, spin decoherence is dominated by the magneto-active environment in the lattice, limiting their applicability. While standard dynamical decoupling techniques, such as the Hahn echo, extend central spin coherence, they fail to suppress the fast noise arising from strong dipolar interactions within the bath. Here, we present a decoupling mechanism, Hybrid-LG, that suppresses intra-bath dipolar interactions -- thus, fast noise acting on spin qubits- and demonstrate its effectiveness in extending spin coherence through efficient in-house CCE simulations. Specifically, we investigate one of the most widely exploited solid-state quantum platforms: an ensemble of nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond coupled to a large and dense bath of substitutional nitrogen paramagnetic impurities (P1 centers). Our results reveal at least a twofold enhancement in NV coherence time relative to standard techniques including P1 center driving, without requiring additional control power.

quant-pharXiv:2512.06948•Dec 9, 2025•0 citations
Published by IOP Publishing Ltd on behalf of Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft. Quantum memories are critical for solid-state quantum computing devices and a good quantum memory requires both long storage time and fast read/write operations. A promising system is the nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond, where the NV electronic spin serves as the computing qubit and a nearby nuclear spin as the memory qubit. Previous works used remote, weakly coupled 13C nuclear spins, trading read/write speed for long storage time. Here we focus instead on the intrinsic strongly coupled 14N nuclear spin. We first quantitatively understand its decoherence mechanism, identifying as its source the electronic spin that acts as a quantum fluctuator. We then propose a scheme to protect the quantum memory from the fluctuating noise by applying dynamical decoupling on the environment itself. We demonstrate a factor of 3 enhancement of the storage time in a proof-of-principle experiment, showing the potential for a quantum memory that combines fast operation with long coherence time.
Quantum memories are critical for solid-state quantum computing devices and a good quantum memory requires both long storage time and fast read/write operations. A promising system is the nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond, where the NV electronic spin serves as the computing qubit and a nearby nuclear spin as the memory qubit. Previous works used remote, weakly coupled 13 C nuclear spins, trading read/write speed for long storage time. Here we focus instead on the intrinsic strongly coupled 14 N nuclear spin. We first quantitatively understand its decoherence mechanism, identifying as its source the electronic spin that acts as a quantum fluctuator. We then propose a scheme to protect the quantum memory from the fluctuating noise by applying dynamical decoupling on the environment itself. We demonstrate a factor of 3 enhancement of the storage time in a proof-of-principle experiment, showing the potential for a quantum memory that combines fast operation with long coherence time.
Quantum memories provide intermediate storage of quantum information until it is needed for the next step of a quantum algorithm or a quantum communication process. Relevant figures of merit are therefore the fidelity with which the information can be written and retrieved, the storage time, and also the speed of the read-write process. Here, we present experimental data on a quantum memory consisting of a single 13{}^{13}13C nuclear spin that is strongly coupled to the electron spin of a nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond. The strong hyperfine interaction of the nearest-neighbor carbon results in transfer times of 300 ns between the register qubit and the memory qubit, with an overall fidelity of 88% for the write-storage-read cycle. The observed storage times of 3.3 ms appear to be limited by the T1{T}_{1}T1​ relaxation of the electron spin. We discuss a possible scheme that may extend the storage time beyond this limit.
Nitrogen vacancy (NV-) color centers in diamond are a prime candidate for use in quantum information devices, owing to their spin-1 ground state, straightforward optical initialization and readout, and long intrinsic coherence times in a room-temperature solid. While the 13C nuclear spin is often a dominant source of magnetic noise, we observe transitions between electron-nuclear hyperfine states of NV- centers in 99% 13C diamond that are robust to decoherence. At magnetic field strengths ranging from 550 - 900 G, these transitions are observable by optically detected magnetic resonance (ODMR), and exhibit linewidths narrowed by factors as high as ~130 at room temperature over typical electron-type transitions observed from this spin system. We anticipate the use of these decoherence-protected transitions, in combination with dynamical decoupling methods, for storage of quantum information.
Selective control of qubits in a quantum register for the purposes of quantum information processing represents a critical challenge for dense spin ensembles in solid-state systems. Here we present a protocol that achieves a complete set of selective electron-nuclear gates and single nuclear rotations in such an ensemble in diamond facilitated by a nearby nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center. The protocol suppresses internuclear interactions as well as unwanted coupling between the NV center and other spins of the ensemble to achieve quantum gate fidelities well exceeding 99%. Notably, our method can be applied to weakly coupled, distant spins representing a scalable procedure that exploits the exceptional properties of nuclear spins in diamond as robust quantum memories.
In recent years, solid-state spin systems have emerged as promising candidates for quantum information processing. Prominent examples are the nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond, phosphorus dopants in silicon (Si:P), rare-earth ions in solids, and V Si -centers in silicon-carbide. The Si:P system has demonstrated that its nuclear spins can yield exceedingly long spin coherence times by eliminating the electron spin of the dopant. For NV centers, however, a proper charge state for storage of nuclear spin qubit coherence has not been identified yet. Here, we identify and characterize the positively charged NV center as an electron-spin-less and optically inactive state by utilizing the nuclear spin qubit as a probe. We control the electronic charge and spin utilizing nanometer scale gate electrodes. We achieve a lengthening of the nuclear spin coherence times by a factor of 4. Surprisingly, the new charge state allows switching of the optical response of single nodes facilitating full individual addressability.
Spin qubit coherence is a fundamental resource for the realization of quantum technologies. For solid-state platforms, spin decoherence is dominated by the magneto-active environment in the lattice, limiting their applicability. While standard dynamical decoupling techniques, such as the Hahn echo, extend central spin coherence, they fail to suppress the fast noise arising from strong dipolar interactions within the bath. Here, we present a decoupling mechanism, Hybrid-LG, that suppresses intra-bath dipolar interactions -- thus, fast noise acting on spin qubits- and demonstrate its effectiveness in extending spin coherence through efficient in-house CCE simulations. Specifically, we investigate one of the most widely exploited solid-state quantum platforms: an ensemble of nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond coupled to a large and dense bath of substitutional nitrogen paramagnetic impurities (P1 centers). Our results reveal at least a twofold enhancement in NV coherence time relative to standard techniques including P1 center driving, without requiring additional control power.