Optical studies of ultrafast orbital dynamics of a single spin in diamond

ORAL

Abstract

The nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond shows great potential as an optically addressable solid-state spin for use in quantum information and metrology. At low temperature ($T < 10$ K) the NV center's orbital-doublet, spin-triplet excited state becomes stable and optically coherent with the ground state. Here we use ultrafast optical pump-probe techniques coupled with optical polarization selection rules to investigate coherent orbital dynamics of the NV center's excited state\footnote{L. C. Bassett*, F. J. Heremans*, D. J. Christle, C. G. Yale, G. Burkard, B. B. Buckley, and D. D. Awschalom, \textit{in preparation}.}. The experiments reveal dynamics which occur on nanosecond down to femtosecond timescales due to the interplay amongst these three orbital levels. These techniques enable all-optical control of the NV center's spin state and could provide a probe to investigate orbital decoherence and phonon interactions in the NV center and other defect systems.

*This work is supported by AFOSR, and DARPA.

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Authors

  • F.J. Heremans

    • Institute for Molecular Engineering, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637

  • D.J. Christle

    • Institute for Molecular Engineering, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637

  • C.G. Yale

    • Institute for Molecular Engineering, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637

  • D.D. Awschalom

    • University of Chicago and UC Santa Barbara
    • Institute for Molecular Engineering, University of Chicago
    • Institute for Molecular Engineering, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637
    • Institute for Molecular Engineering, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60652
    • Center for Spintronics and Quantum Computation, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106
    • University of Chicago - Institute for Molecular Engineering
    • Center for Spintronics and Quantum Computation, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA

  • L.C. Bassett

    • Center for Spintronics and Quantum Computation, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106

  • B.B. Buckley

    • University of California, Santa Barbara - Center for Spintronics and Quantum Computation
    • Center for Spintronics and Quantum Computation, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106

  • G. Burkard

    • University Konstanz
    • University of Konstanz, Germany
    • Department of Physics, University of Konstanz, Germany
    • University of Konstanz
    • Department of Physics, University of Konstanz, D-78457 Konstanz, Germany