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Strong mechanical driving of a single electron spin

Nature Physics volume 11, pages 820–824 (2015)Cite this article

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Abstract

Quantum devices for sensing and computing applications require coherent quantum systems, which can be manipulated in fast and robust ways1. Such quantum control is typically achieved using external electromagnetic fields, which drive the system’s orbital2, charge3 or spin4,5 degrees of freedom. However, most existing approaches require complex and unwieldy gate structures, and with few exceptions6,7 are limited to the regime of weak coherent driving. Here, we present a novel approach to coherently drive a single electronic spin using internal strain fields8,9,10 in an integrated quantum device. Specifically, we employ time-varying strain in a diamond cantilever to induce long-lasting, coherent oscillations of an embedded nitrogen–vacancy (NV) centre spin. We perform direct spectroscopy of the phonon-dressed states emerging from this drive and observe hallmarks of the sought-after strong-driving regime6,11, where the spin rotation frequency exceeds the spin splitting. Furthermore, we employ our continuous strain driving to significantly enhance the NV’s spin coherence time12. Our room-temperature experiments thereby constitute an important step towards strain-driven, integrated quantum devices and open new perspectives to investigate unexplored regimes of strongly driven multilevel systems13 and exotic spin dynamics in hybrid spin-oscillator devices14.

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Figure 1: Experimental set-up and strain-induced coherent spin drive.
Figure 2: Mechanically induced Autler–Townes effect probed by microwave spectroscopy.
Figure 3: Dressed-state spectroscopy of the strongly driven NV spin.
Figure 4: Protecting NV spin coherence by coherent strain driving.

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Acknowledgements

We thank V. Jacques for fruitful discussions, P. Appel for initial assistance with nanofabrication and L. Thiel for support with the experiment control software. We gratefully acknowledge financial support from SNI; NCCR QSIT; SNF grants 200021_143697; and EU FP7 grant 611143 (DIADEMS). A.N. holds a University Research Fellowship from the Royal Society and acknowledges support from the Winton Programme for the Physics of Sustainability.

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Author notes

  1. A. Barfuss and J. Teissier: These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, University of Basel, Klingelbergstrasse 82 CH-4056 Basel, Switzerland,

    A. Barfuss, J. Teissier, E. Neu, A. Nunnenkamp & P. Maletinsky

  2. Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, JJ Thomson Ave., Cambridge CB3 0HE, UK,

    A. Nunnenkamp

Authors
  1. A. Barfuss
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  2. J. Teissier
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Contributions

A.B. and J.T. carried out the experiment and analysed the data. E.N. provided essential support in sample fabrication. A.N. provided theoretical support and modelled the data. All authors commented on the manuscript. P.M. wrote the manuscript, conceived the experiment and supervised the project.

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Correspondence to P. Maletinsky.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Barfuss, A., Teissier, J., Neu, E. et al. Strong mechanical driving of a single electron spin. Nature Phys 11, 820–824 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys3411

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