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Robust Arbitrary Single Qubit Gates for NV Centers: Low-Field or High-Frequency Regimes

López García, Alberto, Cerrillo Moreno, Javier

Published Feb 4, 2025• 0 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

Microwave control of the negatively charged nitrogen-vacancy (NV) defect in diamond is usually based on a two-level approximation of its ground state that is only valid in the regime of high bias magnetic fields or low microwave power. We present the NV-ERC technique, which has demonstrated efficient initialization and readout of the double quantum transition with no leakage to any third level, thanks to an effective Raman coupling. The protocol may be used in the low-field regime and for high-frequency sensing. Furthermore, we propose a scheme to perform fast single-qubit gates in the double quantum transition, consisting of pulse trains of constant frequency and intensity. We analyze its robustness with respect to pulse-timing errors resulting from inaccurate identification of system parameters or phase-control limitations. We also demonstrate that the technique can be implemented in the presence of unknown electric or strain fields.

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JUSTC•Jan 1, 2022•1 citation
Microwave control of the negatively charged nitrogen-vacancy (NV) defect in diamond is usually based on a two-level approximation of its ground state that is only valid in the regime of high bias magnetic fields or low microwave power. We present the NV-ERC technique, which has demonstrated efficient initialization and readout of the double quantum transition with no leakage to any third level, thanks to an effective Raman coupling. The protocol may be used in the low-field regime and for high-frequency sensing. Furthermore, we propose a scheme to perform fast single-qubit gates in the double quantum transition, consisting of pulse trains of constant frequency and intensity. We analyze its robustness with respect to pulse-timing errors resulting from inaccurate identification of system parameters or phase-control limitations. We also demonstrate that the technique can be implemented in the presence of unknown electric or strain fields.
We present a scheme for the implementation of fast arbitrary qubit gates in the ground state of the negatively charged nitrogen-vacancy (NV) defect in diamond [1]. The protocol is especially useful for sensing in two regimes: on the one hand, in the low-field limit where the Zeeman splitting of the NV-center is smaller than the MW Rabi frequency; on the other hand, for the detection of high-frequecy signals, comparable to the Zeeman splitting of the NV-center. It constitutes an extension to the NV-ERC technique [2, 3], which has demonstrated efficient initialization and readout of the double quantum transition with no leakage to any third level thanks to an effective Raman coupling. Here we derive a full theoretical framework of the scheme, identifying the complete unitary associated to the approach, and more specifically the relevant basis transformation for each of two characteristic pulse durations. Based on this insight, we propose a scheme to perform fast single qubit gates in the double quantum transition. We study its robustness with respect to pulse-timing errors resulting from faulty identification of system parameters or phase-control limitations. We finally demonstrate that the technique can also be implemented in the presence of unknown electric or strain fields and numerically test its effectiveness in a Hahn echo sequence in the high-frequency or low-field regime.
Abstract We present a scheme for the implementation of fast arbitrary qubit gates in the ground state of the negatively charged nitrogen-vacancy (NV) defect in diamond. The protocol is especially useful for sensing in two regimes: on the one hand, in the low-field limit where the Zeeman splitting of the NV-center is smaller than the MW Rabi frequency; on the other hand, for the detection of high-frequency signals, comparable to the Zeeman splitting of the NV center. It constitutes an extension to the NV-ERC technique, which has demonstrated efficient initialization and readout of the double quantum transition with no leakage to any third level thanks to an effective Raman coupling. Here we derive a full theoretical framework of the scheme, identifying the complete unitary associated to the approach, and more specifically the relevant basis transformation for each of two characteristic pulse durations. Based on this insight, we propose a scheme to perform fast single qubit gates in the double quantum transition. We study its robustness with respect to pulse-timing errors resulting from faulty identification of system parameters or phase-control limitations. We finally demonstrate that the technique can also be implemented in the presence of unknown electric or strain fields and numerically test its effectiveness in a Hahn echo sequence in the high-frequency or low-field regime.
The negatively charged nitrogen-vacancy (NV) defect in diamond has established itself as a promising quantum sensing platform with applications in nuclear magnetic resonance at the nanoscale. Still, control protocols are not yet optimized to work in all imaginable regimes. We present the NV-ERC technique, which has demonstrated efficient initialization and readout of the double quantum transition with no leakage to any third level thanks to an effective Raman coupling. The protocol is especially useful in the low-field regime and for high-frequency sensing applications. Based on this insight, we propose a scheme to perform fast single qubit gates in the double quantum transition. We study its robustness with respect to pulse-timing errors resulting from faulty identification of system parameters or phase-control limitations. We demonstrate that the technique can also be implemented in the presence of unknown electric or strain fields.
The ground state of the negatively charged NV center forms a spin-1 manifold providing a versatile platform for sensing and information processing. Here we present a scheme for implementing fast arbitrary qutrit gates in the low-field regime using monochromatic microwave pulses of constant intensity tuned to the zero-field transition. By concatenating pulses with appropriate phases and durations, the NV-ERC scheme is extended from SU(2) operations in the double-quantum subspace to the full three-level structure. We show that arbitrary SU(3) operations can be decomposed into rotations in the double-quantum subspace together with effective implementations of the generators related to λ^5\hatλ_5λ^5​ and λ^8\hatλ_8λ^8​. We illustrate this decomposition with a use case: performing quantum state tomography of the complete three-level density matrix.
The NV-ERC technique for control of the NV ground state exploits the spin-1 nature of the system to best initialize the double-quantum transition. It has been proven to be a crucial control strategy for low field or high frequency sensing. Beyond initialization and readout, the scheme to perform 𝜋 rotations in the transition was inefficient for low intensity pulses. We present a complete theoretical picture of the strategy and demonstrate a mechanism for fast arbitrary unitaries in the double quantum transition. We show it is a robust approach with respect to pulse strength inaccuracies even in the presence of unexpected electric or strain fields.
High-fidelity quantum operation of qubits plays an important role in magnetometry based on nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamonds. However, the nontrivial spin-spin coupling of the NV center decreases signal contrast and sensitivity. Here, we overcome this limitation by exploiting the amplitude modulation of microwaves, which allows us to perfectly detect magnetic signals at low fields. Compared with the traditional double-quantum sensing protocol, the full contrast of the detection signal was recovered, and the sensitivity was enhanced three times in the experiment. Our method is applicable to a wide range of sensing tasks, such as temperature, strain, and electric field.