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Link to original content: https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nphys318
Room-temperature coherent coupling of single spins in diamond | Nature Physics
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Room-temperature coherent coupling of single spins in diamond

Nature Physics volume 2, pages 408–413 (2006)Cite this article

Abstract

Coherent coupling between single quantum objects is at the very heart of modern quantum physics. When the coupling is strong enough to prevail over decoherence, it can be used to engineer quantum entangled states. Entangled states have attracted widespread attention because of applications to quantum computing and long-distance quantum communication. For such applications, solid-state hosts are preferred for scalability reasons, and spins are the preferred quantum system in solids because they offer long coherence times. Here we show that a single pair of strongly coupled spins in diamond, associated with a nitrogen-vacancy defect and a nitrogen atom, respectively, can be optically initialized and read out at room temperature. To effect this strong coupling, close proximity of the two spins is required, but large distances from other spins are needed to avoid deleterious decoherence. These requirements were reconciled by implanting molecular nitrogen into high-purity diamond.

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Figure 1: Structure, energy levels and coherence properties of single defects in diamond.
Figure 2: Generation of coupled spin pairs.
Figure 3: Magnetic resonance on NV–N spin pairs.
Figure 4: Polarization transfer between coupled NV–N electron spins and build-up of the polarization of a 15N nuclear spin.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by DFG (project SFB/TR 21), EU (Integrated Project Qubit Applications—QAP—funded by the IST directorate as Contract Number 015848) and ‘Landesstiftung B-W’ (project ‘Atomoptik’). The single-ion implantation work was supported by the Australian Research Council, the Australian Government, and the US National Security Agency (NSA), Advanced Research and Development Activity (ARDA), and the Army Research Office (ARO) under contract numbers W911NF-04-1-0290 and W911NF-05-1-0284, and DARPA QuIST under AFOSR contract number C02-00060. We thank G. Tamanyan for technical assistance with the implantations.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. 3. Physikalisches Institut, Universität Stuttgart, 70550, Stuttgart, Germany

    Torsten Gaebel, Michael Domhan, Iulian Popa, Christoffer Wittmann, Philipp Neumann, Fedor Jelezko & Jörg Wrachtrup

  2. School of Physics, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, 3010, Australia

    James R. Rabeau, Nikolas Stavrias & Steven Prawer

  3. Centre for Quantum Computer Technology, School of Physics, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, 3010, Australia

    Andrew D. Greentree & Steven Prawer

  4. Central Laboratory of Ion Beam and Radionuclides, Ruhr University, 44801, Bochum, Germany

    Jan Meijer

  5. Centre for Quantum Computer Technology, Macquarie University, Sydney, 2109, Australia

    Jason Twamley

  6. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Texas A&M University, Texas, 77843-3128, USA

    Philip R. Hemmer

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  1. Torsten Gaebel
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Correspondence to Fedor Jelezko or Jörg Wrachtrup.

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Gaebel, T., Domhan, M., Popa, I. et al. Room-temperature coherent coupling of single spins in diamond. Nature Phys 2, 408–413 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys318

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