Measuring mechanical motion with a single spin

Abstract

We study theoretically the measurement of a mechanical oscillator using a single two level system as a detector. In a recent experiment, we used a single electronic spin associated with a nitrogen vacancy center in diamond to probe the thermal motion of a magnetized cantilever at room temperature {Kolkowitz et al., Science 335, 1603 (2012)}. Here, we present a detailed analysis of the sensitivity limits of this technique, as well as the possibility to measure the zero point motion of the oscillator. Further, we discuss the issue of measurement backaction in sequential measurements and find that although backaction heating can occur, it does not prohibit the detection of zero point motion. Throughout the paper we focus on the experimental implementation of a nitrogen vacancy center coupled to a magnetic cantilever; however, our results are applicable to a wide class of spin-oscillator systems. Implications for preparation of nonclassical states of a mechanical oscillator are also discussed.

17 pages, 6 figures

References in corpus (12)

• High-sensitivity diamond magnetometer with nanoscale resolution
• Quantum Theory of Cavity-Assisted Sideband Cooling of Mechanical Motion
• Universal dynamical decoupling of a single solid-state spin from a spin bath
• High-fidelity projective readout of a solid-state spin quantum register
• Reconstruction of non-classical cavity field states with snapshots of their decoherence
• Dynamical Decoupling of a single electron spin at room temperature
• Single-spin magnetometry with multi-pulse sensing sequences
• Bose-Einstein condensate coupled to a nanomechanical resonator on an atom chip
• Dephasing of solid-state qubits at optimal points
• Coherent, mechanical control of a single electronic spin
• Electron spin as a spectrometer of nuclear spin noise and other fluctuations
• Probing the quantum coherence of a nanomechanical resonator using a superconducting qubit: I. Echo scheme

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