Mechanical control of a single nuclear spin in diamond

Nuclear spins interact weakly with their environment and therefore exhibit long coherence times. This has led to their use as memory qubits in quantum information platforms, where they are controlled via electromagnetic waves. Scaling up such platforms comes with challenges in terms of power efficiency, heating, as well as cross-talk between devices. Here, we demonstrate coherent control of a single nuclear spin using surface acoustic waves. We use a single silicon-vacancy center in diamond as an interface between a single $^{13}$C nuclear spin and a surface acoustic wave and demonstrate mechanically driven Ramsey and spin-echo sequences on the nuclear spin to show that it retains its excellent coherence properties. We estimate that this approach requires 2–3 orders of magnitude less power than more conventional control methods. Furthermore, this technique is scalable because of the possibility of guiding acoustic waves and reduced cross-talk between different acoustic channels. This work demonstrates the use of mechanical waves for complex quantum control sequences on single electronic and nuclear spins, offers an advantageous alternative to the standard electromagnetic control of nuclear spins, and opens prospects to interface silicon-vacancy center spins and nuclear spins with mechanical resonators towards the single phonon regime.