Search

Point defects in diamond in the form of nitrogen vacancy centres are believed to be promising candidates for qubits in quantum computers. Grotzet al. present a method for manipulating the charge state of nitrogen vacancies using an electrolytic gate electrode.

Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy is a powerful technique that can identify the presence of certain atoms in a sample by their magnetic properties. Müller et al.now take this concept to its ultimate limit by measuring individual nuclear spins near the surface of diamond.

In quantum optical technologies, identical emitters of indistinguishable single photons are difficult to realize due to the inherent dissimilarity of each emitting device. Here, Rogers et al.demonstrate a solid-state uniform single-photon source, which does not require external tuning of optical properties.

Detecting the magnetic spins of a small number of atoms is important for applications such as magnetic resonance imaging. Here, Steinert et al.demonstrate that nitrogen-vacancy defect centres in diamond allow spin detection at room temperature at length scales smaller than human cells.

Point defects in diamond known as nitrogen-vacancy centres have been shown to be sensitive to minute magnetic fields, even at room temperature. A demonstration that the spin associated with these defect centres is also sensitive to electric fields holds out the prospect of a sensor that can resolve, under ambient conditions, single spins and single elementary charges at the nanoscale.

Engineered defects in the diamond lattice hold promise for the storage and manipulation of quantum information. Entanglement between the electron and nuclear spins of two such defects is demonstrated at room temperature.

Nitrogen-vacancy colour centre defects in diamond are one possible host for qubits, but such an application requires a method for reading out the colour centre spin state. Here, the authors demonstrate a photoelectric readout technique of the magnetic resonances of these colour centres.

Phase-estimation algorithms applied to single nitrogen nuclear spins in diamond allow weak magnetic fields to be measured with high sensitivity and a large dynamic range.

The nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centre, a naturally occurring impurity in diamond crystals, has a unique, long-lived single-electron spin state that can be controlled and detected optically. This paper demonstrates the first steps towards a sensitive, high-resolution imaging technique in which these diamond spins are exploited. It is shown that the location of single NV spins can be determined with nanometre scale resolution, at ambient conditions, using magneto-optical spin detection.

Nitrogen–vacancy centres in diamond have emerged as a promising platform for quantum information processing at room temperature. Now, coherent coupling between two electron spins separated by almost 10 nm has been demonstrated. At this distance, the spins can be addressed individually, which might enable the construction of a network of connected quantum registers.

The synthesis of highly pure diamond nanocrystals with a very small amount of paramagnetic impurities allows the observation of electron spin-dephasing times of up to 1.8 ms, a record for solid-state materials. The result could have important implications for quantum information processing methods based on diamond.

Diamond nanoparticles containing only about 400 atoms emit bright fluorescence due to silicon vacancy defects.

Precise control of quantum systems is important for numerous quantum information tasks, but becomes harder as the system size grows. Dolde et al.use dynamical decoupling techniques to obtain high-fidelity entangled states between electron spins in a nitrogen-vacancy-centre qubit system, with low cross-talk.

Researchers demonstrate single-photon generation by electrical excitation from a single neutral nitrogen–vacancy centre in a p–i–n diamond diode. The photon generation rate at room temperature was 4 × 10⁴ photons s⁻¹ for an injection current of 14 mA. The researchers also investigated the carrier recombination dynamics of the device.

An experiment demonstrates that single surface plasmons—collective electronic excitations on metal surfaces—show wave–particle duality. The result suggests that a macroscopic number of electrons can behave like a single quantum particle.

Time-crystalline order appears in periodically driven systems with broken time-translation symmetry. Now, a protocol based on pulse drives of different frequencies is used to create and continuously observe time crystals with long lifetimes.

Nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond offer a promising platform for quantum applications but their optical and spin properties can be hampered by imperfections of the host crystal. Here, nitrogen-vacancy centers are created in high-pressure high-temperature diamond of high crystalline quality, demonstrating a small inhomogeneous broadening of the spin and optical transitions.

The orientation, spin coherence times and spin energy levels of individual nanodiamond nitrogen-vacancy centres have been measured inside living human cells with nanoscale precision.

Error correction is central to fault-tolerant quantum computation, but although various schemes have been developed in theory, there are few experimental realizations; a quantum error correction process is now reported for a single system of electron and nuclear spins residing in a diamond crystal.