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Sensing Individual Nuclear Spins with a Single Rare-Earth Electron Spin

Thomas Kornher, Da-Wu Xiao, Kangwei Xia, Fiammetta Sardi, Nan Zhao, Roman Kolesov, and Jörg Wrachtrup
Phys. Rev. Lett. 124, 170402 – Published 29 April 2020
Physics logo See synopsis: Sensing Single Spins in Dense Spin Baths
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Abstract

Rare-earth related electron spins in crystalline hosts are unique material systems, as they can potentially provide a direct interface between telecom band photons and long-lived spin quantum bits. Specifically, their optically accessible electron spins in solids interacting with nuclear spins in their environment are valuable quantum memory resources. Detection of nearby individual nuclear spins, so far exclusively shown for few dilute nuclear spin bath host systems such as the nitrogen-vacancy center in diamond or the silicon vacancy in silicon carbide, remained an open challenge for rare earths in their host materials, which typically exhibit dense nuclear spin baths. Here, we present the electron spin spectroscopy of single Ce3+ ions in a yttrium orthosilicate host, featuring a coherence time of T2=124μs. This coherent interaction time is sufficiently long to isolate proximal Y89 nuclear spins from the nuclear spin bath of Y89. Furthermore, it allows for the detection of a single nearby Si29 nuclear spin, native to the host material with 5% abundance. This study opens the door to quantum memory applications in rare-earth ion related systems based on coupled environmental nuclear spins, potentially useful for quantum error correction schemes.

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  • Received 15 November 2019
  • Accepted 26 March 2020

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.124.170402

© 2020 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Atomic, Molecular & OpticalQuantum Information, Science & Technology

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Sensing Single Spins in Dense Spin Baths

Published 29 April 2020

The measurement of a single nuclear spin in a noisy spin environment opens up new possibilities for quantum technologies.

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Authors & Affiliations

Thomas Kornher1,*, Da-Wu Xiao2, Kangwei Xia1, Fiammetta Sardi1, Nan Zhao2, Roman Kolesov1, and Jörg Wrachtrup1

  • 13rd Institute of Physics, University of Stuttgart, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany
  • 2Beijing Computational Science Research Center, Haidian District, Beijing 100193, China

  • *t.kornher@pi3.uni-stuttgart.de

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Issue

Vol. 124, Iss. 17 — 1 May 2020

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