Search

As a point defect with unique spin and optical properties, nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond has attracted much attention in the fields of quantum sensing, quantum simulation, and quantum networks. The optical properties of an NV center are crucial for all these quantum applications. However, NV centers fabricated by destructive methods such as electron irradiation or ion implantation usually exhibit poor optical coherence. In this work, we demonstrate a non-destructive method to fabricate optically coherent NV centers. High-purity single crystal diamonds are annealed under high pressure and high temperature (1700 $^{\circ}$C, 5.5 GPa), and individually resolvable NV centers with narrow PLE linewidth (<100 MHz) are produced. The high-pressure condition prevents the conversion of diamond to graphite during high-temperature annealing, significantly expanding the parameter space for creating high-performance artificial defects for quantum information science. These findings deepen our understanding of NV center formation in diamond and have implications for the optimization of color centers in solids, including silicon carbide and hexagonal boron nitride., Comment: 11 pages,4 figures

Quantum simulation offers an analog approach for exploring exotic quantum phenomena using controllable platforms, typically necessitating ultracold temperatures to maintain the quantum coherence. Superradiance lattices (SLs) have been harnessed to simulate coherent topological physics at room temperature, but the thermal motion of atoms remains a notable challenge in accurately measuring the physical quantities. To overcome this obstacle, we invent and validate a velocity scanning tomography technique to discern the responses of atoms with different velocities, allowing cold-atom spectroscopic resolution within room-temperature SLs. By comparing absorption spectra with and without atoms moving at specific velocities, we can derive the Wannier-Stark ladders of the SL across various effective static electric fields, their strengths being proportional to the atomic velocities. We extract the Zak phase of the SL by monitoring the ladder frequency shift as a function of the atomic velocity, effectively demonstrating the topological winding of the energy bands. Our research signifies the feasibility of room-temperature quantum simulation and facilitates their applications in quantum information processing., Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures

Repetitive Ramsey interferometry measurements (RIMs) are often used to measure qubit coherence, assuming that the environment remains unaffected after each measurement and the outcomes of all measurements are independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.). While this assumption is valid for a classical environment, it may not hold for a quantum environment due to the non-negligible backaction from qubit to environment. Here we present a general theoretical framework to incorporate the measurement backaction from qubit to environment in sequential RIMs. We show that a RIM of a qubit induces a quantum channel on the quantum environment, and sequential RIMs gradually steer the quantum environment to the fixed points of the channel. We reveal three distinct environment steering effects -- polarization, depolarization and metastable polarization, depending on the commutativity of the noise operator $B$ and the free environment Hamiltonian $H_e$: (1) if $B$ commutes with $H_e$, i.e., $[B,H_e]=0$, the quantum environment is gradually polarized to different eigenstates of $B$ as the number $m$ of repetitive RIMs increases; (2) When $[B,H_e]\neq 0$, the quantum environment is gradually depolarized to a maximally mixed state of its whole Hilbert space or a Hilbert subspace; (3) When $[B,H_e]\neq 0$ but one of $H_e$ and $B$ is a small perturbation on the other, metastable polarization can happen, such that the quantum environment is first polarized for a finite range of $m$ but becomes gradually depolarized as $m$ increases further. The environment steering also makes the measurement statistics of sequential RIMs develop non-i.i.d. features, such that the measurement result distribution can display multiple peaks for a small quantum environment, corresponding to different fixed points of the quantum channel.

As promising quantum sensors, nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond have been widely used in frontier studies in condensed matter physics, material sciences, and life sciences. In practical applications, weak laser excitation is favorable as it reduces the side effects of laser irradiation, for example, phototoxicity and heating. Here we report a combined theoretical and experimental study of optically detected magnetic resonance (ODMR) of NV-center ensembles under weak 532-nm laser excitation. In this regime, both the width and splitting of ODMR spectra decrease with increasing laser power. This power dependence is reproduced with a model considering laser-induced charge neutralization of NV--N+ pairs, which alters the local electric field environment. These results are important for understanding and designing NV-based quantum sensing in light-sensitive applications.

Megabar pressures are of crucial importance for cutting-edge studies of condensed matter physics and geophysics. With the development of diamond anvil cell, laboratory studies of high pressure have entered the megabar era for decades. However, it is still challenging to implement in-situ magnetic sensing under ultrahigh pressures. Here, we demonstrate optically detected magnetic resonance of diamond nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers, a promising quantum sensor of strain and magnetic fields, up to 1.4 Mbar. We quantify the reduction and blueshifts of NV fluorescence under high pressures. We demonstrate coherent manipulation of NV electron spins and extend its working pressure to the megabar region. These results shed new light on our understanding of diamond NV centers and will benefit quantum sensing under extreme conditions., Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures

The integration of NMR and high pressure technique brings unique opportunities to study electronic, structural and dynamical properties under extreme conditions. Despite a great degree of success has been achieved using coil-based schemes, the contradictory requirement on sample volume of these two techniques remains an outstanding challenge. In this letter, we introduce diamond nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers, as the source and probe of in-situ nuclear spin polarization, to address the sample volume issue. We demonstrate hyperpolarization and coherent control of $^{14}$N nuclear spins under high pressures. NMR spectra of a micro-diamond are measured up to 16.6 GPa, and unexpected pressure shift of the $^{14}$N nuclear quadrupole and hyperfine coupling terms are observed. Our work contributes to quantum sensing enhanced spectrometry under extreme conditions., Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures

Quantum coherence control usually requires extremely low temperature environments. Even for spins in diamond, a remarkable exception, the coherence signal is lost as temperature approaches 700 K. Here we demonstrate quantum coherence control of the electron spins of nitrogen-vacancy centers in nanodiamonds at temperatures near 1000 K. The scheme is based on initialization and readout of the spins at room temperature and control at high temperature, which is enabled by pulse laser heating and rapid diffusion cooling of nanodiamonds on amorphous carbon films. Using high-temperature spin control, we observe the magnetic phase transition of a single nickel nanoparticle at about 615 K. This work enables nano-thermometry and nano-magnetometry in the high-temperature regime., Comment: 26 pages, 3 figures + 12 supplementary figures

Nitrogen vacancy (NV) centres in diamond are attractive as quantum sensors owing to their superb coherence under ambient conditions. However, the NV centre spin resonances are relatively insensitive to some important parameters such as temperature. Here we design and experimentally demonstrate a hybrid nano-thermometer composed of NV centres and a magnetic nanoparticle (MNP), in which the temperature sensitivity is enhanced by the critical magnetization of the MNP near the ferromagnetic-paramagnetic transition temperature. The temperature susceptibility of the NV center spin resonance reached 14 MHz/K, enhanced from the value without the MNP by two orders of magnitude. The sensitivity of a hybrid nano-thermometer composed of a Cu_{1-x}Ni_{x} MNP and a nanodiamond was measured to be 11 mK/Hz^{1/2} under ambient conditions. With such high-sensitivity, we monitored nanometer-scale temperature variation of 0.3 degree with a time resolution of 60 msec. This hybrid nano-thermometer provides a novel approach to studying a broad range of thermal processes at nanoscales such as nano-plasmonics, sub-cellular heat-stimulated processes, thermodynamics of nanostructures, and thermal remanent magnetization of nanoparticles., Comment: 21 pages, 6 figures

Single-shot readout of qubits is required for scalable quantum computing. Nuclear spins are superb quantum memories due to their long coherence times but are difficult to be read out in single shot due to their weak interaction with probes. Here we demonstrate single-shot readout of a weakly coupled $^{13}$C nuclear spin, which is unresolvable in traditional protocols. We use dynamical decoupling pulse sequences to selectively enhance the entanglement between the nuclear spin and a nitrogen-vacancy center electron spin, tuning the weak measurement of the nuclear spin to a strong, projective one. A nuclear spin coupled to the NV center with strength 330 kHz is read out in 200 ms with fidelity 95.5\%. This work provides a general protocol for single-shot readout of weakly coupled qubits and therefore largely extends the range of physical systems for scalable quantum computing., Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures

Precise parameter estimation plays a central role in science and technology. The statistical error in estimation can be decreased by repeating measurement, leading to that the resultant uncertainty of the estimated parameter is proportional to the square root of the number of repetitions in accordance with the central limit theorem. Quantum parameter estimation, an emerging field of quantum technology, aims to use quantum resources to yield higher statistical precision than classical approaches. Here, we report the first room-temperature implementation of entanglement-enhanced phase estimation in a solid-state system: the nitrogen-vacancy centre in pure diamond. We demonstrate a super-resolving phase measurement with two entangled qubits of different physical realizations: an nitrogen-vacancy centre electron spin and a proximal ${}^{13}$C nuclear spin. The experimental data shows clearly the uncertainty reduction when entanglement resource is used, confirming the theoretical expectation. Our results represent an elemental demonstration of enhancement of quantum metrology against classical procedure., Comment: 9 pages including the supplementary material, 6 figures in main text plus 3 figures in supplementary material

High fidelity quantum control over qubits is of crucial importance for realistic quantum computing, and it turns to be more challenging when there are inevitable interactions among qubits. By employing a bandselective shaped pulse, we demonstrate a high fidelity flip over electron spin of nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond. In contrast with traditional rectangular pulses, the shaped pulse has almost equal excitation effect among a sharply edged region (in frequency domain). So the three sub-levels of host $^{14}N$ nuclear spin can be flipped accurately at the same time, while the redundant flip of other sublevels (e. g. of a nearby $^{13}C$ nuclear spin ) is well suppressed. The shaped pulse can be applied to a large amount of quantum systems in which band-selective operation are required., Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures

Realistic quantum computing is subjected to noise. A most important frontier in research of quantum computing is to implement noise-resilient quantum control over qubits. Dynamical decoupling can protect coherence of qubits. Here we demonstrate non-trivial quantum evolution steered by dynamical decoupling control, which automatically suppresses the noise effect. We designed and implemented a self-protected controlled-NOT gate on the electron spin of a nitrogen-vacancy centre and a nearby carbon-13 nuclear spin in diamond at room temperature, by employing an engineered dynamical decoupling control on the electron spin. Final state fidelities of 0.91 and 0.88 were observed even with imperfect initial states. In the mean time, the qubit coherence time has been elongated by at least 30 folds. The design scheme does not require that the dynamical decoupling control commute with the qubit interaction and works for general systems. This work marks a step toward realistic quantum computing., Comment: Originally submitted version. Revised version and Supplementary information can be download at http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2013/130805/ncomms3254/full/ncomms3254.html

We experimentally investigate the protection of electron spin coherence of nitrogen vacancy (NV) center in diamond by dynamical nuclear polarization. The electron spin decoherence of an NV center is caused by the magnetic ield fluctuation of the $^{13}$C nuclear spin bath, which contributes large thermal fluctuation to the center electron spin when it is in equilibrium state at room temperature. To address this issue, we continuously transfer the angular momentum from electron spin to nuclear spins, and pump the nuclear spin bath to a polarized state under Hartman-Hahn condition. The bath polarization effect is verified by the observation of prolongation of the electron spin coherence time ($T_2^*$). Optimal conditions for the dynamical nuclear polarization (DNP) process, including the pumping pulse duration and depolarization effect of laser pulses, are studied. Our experimental results provide strong support for quantum information processing and quantum simulation using polarized nuclear spin bath in solid state systems., Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures

Quantum mechanics implies that not all physical properties can be simultaneously well defined, such as the momentum and position due to Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Some alternative theories have been explored, notably the non-contextual hidden variable theories in which the properties of a system have pre-defined values which are independent of the measurement contextual. However, the Kochen-Specker theorem showed that such non-contextual hidden variable theories are in conflict with quantum mechanics. Recently, a state-independent inequality satisfied by non-contextual hidden variable theories and violated by quantum mechanics is proposed in the simplest three-state system (a qutrit) by the least 13 projection measurement rays. Here, we report an experimental demonstration of the violation of this inequality. This provides a state-independent experimental test of quantum contextuality, for the first time in solid state system, by a natural qutrit of nitrogen-vacancy center in diamond at room temperature., Comment: 20 pages, 4 figures

Fluctuations of local fields cause decoherence of quantum objects. It is generally believed that at high temperatures, thermal noises are much stronger than quantum fluctuations unless the thermal effects are suppressed by certain techniques such as spin echo. Here we report the discovery of strong quantum-fluctuation effects of nuclear spin baths on free-induction decay of single electron spins in solids at room temperature. We find that the competition between the quantum and thermal fluctuations is controllable by an external magnetic field. These findings are based on Ramsey interference measurement of single nitrogen-vacancy center spins in diamond and numerical simulation of the decoherence, which are in excellent agreement., Comment: 4 pages 4 figures, experiment & theory

Here we report an experimental realization of optimal phase-covariant quantum cloning machine with a single electron spin in solid state system at room temperature. The involved three states of two logic qubits are encoded physically in three levels of a single electron spin with two Zeeman sub-levels at a nitrogen-vacancy defect center in diamond. The preparation of input state and the phase-covariant quantum cloning transformation are controlled by two independent microwave fields. The average experimental fidelity reaches 85.2% which is very close to theoretical optimal fidelity 85.4% and is beyond the bound 83.3% of universal cloning., Comment: 3 pages; 5 figures