Coherent manipulation of nuclear spins in the strong driving regime

Abstract

Spin-based quantum information processing makes extensive use of spin-state manipulation. This ranges from dynamical decoupling of nuclear spins in quantum sensing experiments to applying logical gates on qubits in a quantum processor. Here we present an antenna for strong driving in quantum sensing experiments and theoretically address challenges of the strong driving regime. First, we designed and implemented a micron-scale planar spiral RF antenna capable of delivering intense fields to a sample. The planar antenna is tailored for quantum sensing experiments using the diamond's nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center and should be applicable to other solid-state defects. The antenna has a broad bandwidth of 22 MHz, is compatible with scanning probes, and is suitable for cryogenic and ultrahigh vacuum conditions. We measure the magnetic field induced by the antenna and estimate a field-to-current ratio of $113\pm 16$ G/A, representing a x6 increase in efficiency compared to the state-of-the-art. We demonstrate the antenna by driving Rabi oscillations in ${}^1$H spins of an organic sample on the diamond surface and measure ${}^1$H Rabi frequencies of over 500 kHz, i.e., $\pi$-pulses shorter than 1 $\mu s$ - faster than previously reported in NV-based nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). Finally, we discuss the implications of driving spins with a field tilted from the transverse plane in a regime where the driving amplitude is comparable to the spin-state splitting, such that the rotating wave approximation does not describe the dynamics well. We present a recipe to optimize pulse fidelity in this regime based on a phase and offset-shifted sine drive, that may be optimized without numerical optimization procedures or precise modeling of the experiment. We consider this approach in a range of driving amplitudes and show that it is particularly efficient in the case of a tilted driving field.

References in corpus (6)

• Surface codes: Towards practical large-scale quantum computation
• Room-temperature optically detected magnetic resonance of single defects in hexagonal boron nitride
• Universal coherence protection in a solid-state spin qubit
• Strong driving of a single spin using arbitrarily polarized fields
• Randomisation of Pulse Phases for Unambiguous and Robust Quantum Sensing
• High-Resolution NMR Spectroscopy at Large Fields with Nitrogen Vacancy Centers

Cited by in corpus (8)

• Protecting Quantum Information via Destructive Interference of Correlated Noise
• Improved Electron-Nuclear Quantum Gates for Spin Sensing and Control
• Robust microwave cavity control for NV ensemble manipulation
• Pulse sequence design for high field NMR with NV centers in dipolarly coupled samples
• Error bounds for the Floquet-Magnus expansion and their application to the semiclassical quantum Rabi model
• Digital Twin Simulations Toolbox of the Nitrogen-Vacancy Center in Diamond
• Enhanced microscale NMR spectroscopy of low-gyromagnetic ratio nuclei via hydrogen transfer
• Robust gigahertz-range ac magnetometry with an ensemble of NV centers in diamond using concatenated continuous dynamical decoupling