Sensing the internal dynamics of individual nuclear spins or clusters of nuclear spins has recently become possible by observing the coherence decay of a nearby electronic spin: the weak magnetic noise is amplified by a periodic, multi-pulse decoupling sequence. However, it remains challenging to robustly infer underlying atomic-scale structure from decoherence traces in all but the simplest cases. We introduce Floquet spectroscopy as a versatile paradigm for analysis of these experiments, and argue it offers a number of general advantages. In particular, this technique generalises to more complex situations, offering physical insight in regimes of many-body dynamics, strong coupling and pulses of finite duration. As there is no requirement for resonant driving, the proposed spectroscopic approach permits physical interpretation of striking, but overlooked, coherence decay features in terms of the form of the avoided crossings of the underlying quasienergy eigenspectrum. This is exemplified by a set of "diamond" shaped features arising for transverse-field scans in the case of single-spin sensing by NV-centers in diamond. We investigate also applications for donors in silicon showing that the resulting tunable interaction strengths offer highly promising future sensors.
Universidad Nacional de Córdoba（科尔多瓦国立大学）；CONICET, Instituto de Física Enrique Gaviola (IFEG)（阿根廷国家科学研究委员会，恩里克·加维亚拉物理研究所）；Department of Physics, CUNY - The City College of New York（纽约市立学院物理学系）；CUNY-Graduate Center（纽约市立大学研究生中心）
Low-frequency fiber-optic vibration sensing with a Floquet-engineered optical lattice clock
National Time Service Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院国家授时中心）；School of Physics, Northwest University（西北大学物理学院）；School of Astronomy and Space Science, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院大学天文与空间科学学院）
Magnetometry utilizing a spin qubit in a solid state possesses high sensitivity. In particular, a magnetic sensor with a high spatial resolution can be achieved with the electron-spin states of a nitrogen vacancy (NV) center in diamond. In this study, we demonstrated that NV quantum sensing based on multiple-pulse decoupling sequences can sensitively measure not only the amplitude but also the phase shift of an alternating-current (AC) magnetic field. In the AC magnetometry based on decoupling sequences, the maximum phase accumulation of the NV spin due to an AC field can be generally obtained…
State-of-the-art methods for sensing weak AC fields are only efficient in the low frequency domain (< 10 MHz). The inefficiency of sensing high frequency signals is due to the lack of ability to use dynamical decoupling. In this paper we show that dynamical decoupling can be incorporated into high frequency sensing schemes and by this we demonstrate that the high sensitivity achieved for low frequency can be extended to the whole spectrum. While our scheme is general and suitable to a variety of atomic and solid-state systems, we experimentally demonstrate it with the nitrogen-vacancy center i…
Single-molecule nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is a crown-jewel challenge in the field of magnetic resonance spectroscopy and has important applications in chemical analysis and in quantum computing. Recently, it becomes possible to tackle this grand challenge thanks to experimental advances in preserving quantum coherence of nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center spins in diamond as a sensitive probe and theoretical proposals on atomic-scale magnetometry via dynamical decoupling control. Through decoherence measurement of NV centers under dynamical decoupling control, sensing of single $^{13}\textbf{…
Dynamical decoupling sequences with multiple pulses can be considered to exhibit filter functions for the time evolution of a qubit superposition state. They contribute to the improvement of coherence time and qubit-phase accumulation due to a time-varying field and can thus achieve high-frequency-resolution spectroscopy. Such behaviors find useful application in highly sensitive detection based on qubits for various external fields such as a magnetic field. Hence, decoupling sequences are indispensable tools for quantum sensing. In this study, we experimentally and theoretically investigated …
Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) has enormous applications. Two-dimensional NMR is an essential technique to characterize correlations between nuclei and, hence, molecule structures. Towards the ultimate goal of single-molecule NMR, dynamical-decoupling- (DD) enhanced diamond quantum sensing enables the detection of single nuclear spins and nanoscale NMR. However, there is still the lack of a standard method in DD-based quantum sensing to characterize correlations between nuclear spins in single molecules. Here we present a scheme of two-dimensional DD-based quantum sensing, as a universal met…
Adiabatically varying the driving frequency of a periodically-driven many-body quantum system can induce controlled transitions between resonant eigenstates of the time-averaged Hamiltonian, corresponding to adiabatic transitions in the Floquet spectrum and presenting a general tool in quantum many-body control. Using the central spin model as an application, we show how such controlled driving processes can lead to a polarization-based decoupling of the central spin from its decoherence-inducing environment at resonance. While it is generally impossible to obtain the exact Floquet Hamiltonian…
Characteristic dips appear in the coherence traces of a probe qubit when dynamical decoupling (DD) is applied in synchrony with the precession of target nuclear spins, forming the basis for nanoscale nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). The frequency of the microwave control pulses is chosen to match the qubit transition but this can be detuned from resonance by experimental errors, hyperfine coupling intrinsic to the qubit, or inhomogeneous broadening. The detuning acts as an additional static field which is generally assumed to be completely removed in Hahn echo and DD experiments. Here we demo…
The signal to noise ratio of quantum sensing protocols scales with the square root of the coherence time. Thus, increasing this time is a key goal in the field. Dynamical decoupling has proven to be efficient in prolonging the coherence times for the benefit of quantum sensing. However, dynamical decoupling can only push the sensitivity up to a certain limit. In this work we present a new approach to increasing the coherence time further through error correction which can improve the efficiency of quantum sensing beyond the fundamental limits of current state of the art methods.
The features of topological physics can manifest in a variety of physical systems in distinct ways. Periodically driven systems, with the advantage of high flexibility and controllability, provide a versatile platform to simulate many topological phenomena and may lead to novel phenomena that can not be observed in the absence of driving. Here we investigate the influence of realistic experimental noise on the realization of a two-level system under a two-frequency drive that induces topologically nontrivial band structure in the two-dimensional Floquet space. We propose a dynamical decoupling…
The use of the nuclear spins surrounding electron spin qubits as quantum registers and long-lived memories opens the way to new applications in quantum information and biological sensing. Hence, there is a need for generic and robust forms of control of the nuclear registers. Although adiabatic gates are widely used in quantum information, they can become too slow to outpace decoherence. Here, we introduce a technique whereby adiabatic gates arise from the dynamical decoupling protocols that simultaneously extend coherence. We illustrate this pulse-based adiabatic control for nuclear spins aro…
We use multi-pulse dynamical decoupling to increase the coherence lifetime (T2) of large numbers of nitrogen-vacancy (NV) electronic spins in room temperature diamond, thus enabling scalable applications of multi-spin quantum information processing and metrology. We realize an order-of-magnitude extension of the NV multi-spin T2 for diamond samples with widely differing spin environments. For samples with nitrogen impurity concentration <~1 ppm, we find T2 > 2 ms, comparable to the longest coherence time reported for single NV centers, and demonstrate a ten-fold enhancement in NV multi-spin se…
Institute of Physics, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)（洛桑联邦理工学院物理研究所）；Center for Quantum Science and Engineering, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)（洛桑联邦理工学院量子科学与工程中心）；Dipartimento di Fisica “A. Volta”, Università di Pavia（帕维亚大学“A.沃尔塔”物理学系）
Diamond quantum sensors are sensitive to weak microwave magnetic fields resonant to the spin transitions. However the spectral resolution in such protocols is limited ultimately by sensor lifetime. Here we demonstrate a heterodyne detection method for microwaves (MW) leading to a lifetime independent spectral resolution in the GHz range. We reference the MW-signal to a local oscillator by generating the initial superposition state from a coherent source. Experimentally we achieve a spectral resolution below $1\ \rm{Hz}$ for a $4\ \rm{GHz}$ signal far below the sensor lifetime limit of kilohert…
Rydberg atoms have attracted significant interest recently as electric field sensors. In order to assess potential applications, detailed understanding of relevant figures of merit is necessary, particularly in relation to other, more mature, sensor technologies. Here we present a quantitative analysis of the Rydberg sensor's sensitivity to oscillating electric fields with frequencies between 1 kHz and 1 THz. Sensitivity is calculated using a combination of analytical and semi-classical Floquet models. Using these models, optimal sensitivity at arbitrary field frequency is determined. We valid…
Quantum dynamical decoupling is a procedure to cancel the effective coupling between two systems by applying sequences of fast actuations, under which the coupling Hamiltonian averages out to leading order(s). One of its prominent uses is to drive a target system in such a way as to decouple it from a less protected one. The present manuscript investigates the dual strategy: acting on a noisy "environment" subsystem such as to decouple it from a target system. The potential advantages are that actions on the environment commute with system operations, and that imprecisions in the decoupling ac…
We propose a scheme for mixed dynamical decoupling (MDD), where we combine continuous dynamical decoupling with robust sequences of phased pulses. Specifically, we use two fields for decoupling, where the first continuous driving field creates dressed states that are robust to environmental noise. Then, a second field implements a robust sequence of phased pulses to perform inversions of the dressed qubits, thus achieving robustness to amplitude fluctuations of both fields. We show that MDD outperforms standard concatenated continuous dynamical decoupling in realistic numerical simulations for…
Sensing, localising and identifying individual nuclear spins or frequency components of a signal in the presence of a noisy environments requires the development of robust and selective methods of dynamical decoupling. An important challenge that remains to be addressed in this context are spurious higher order resonances in current dynamical decoupling sequences as they can lead to the misidentification of nuclei or of different frequency components of external signals. Here we overcome this challenge with engineered quantum sensing sequences that achieve both, enhanced robustness and the sim…
We present a method to identify spurious signals generated by finite-width pulses in quantum sensing experiments and apply it to recently proposed dynamical decoupling sequences for accurate spectral interpretation. We first study the origin of these fake resonances and quantify their behavior in a situation that involves the measurement of a classical magnetic field. Here we show that a change of the initial phase of the sensor or, equivalently, of the decoupling pulses leads to oscillations in the spurious signal intensity while the real resonances remain intact. Finally we extend our result…
Quantum systems can be used to measure various quantities in their environment with high precision. Often, however, their sensitivity is limited by the decohering effects of this same environment. Dynamical decoupling schemes are widely used to filter environmental noise from signals, but their performance is limited by the spectral properties of the signal and noise at hand. Quantum error correction schemes have therefore emerged as a complementary technique without the same limitations. To date, however, they have failed to correct the dominant noise type in many quantum sensors, which coupl…
Coherence time is an essential parameter for quantum sensing, quantum information, and quantum computation. In this work, we demonstrate electron spin coherence times as long as 0.1 s for an ensemble of rubidium atoms trapped in a solid parahydrogen matrix. We explore the underlying physics limiting the coherence time. The properties of these matrix isolated atoms are very promising for future applications, including quantum sensing of nuclear spins. If combined with efficient single-atom readout, this would enable NMR and magnetic resonance imaging of single molecules cotrapped with alkali-me…
We show that the addition of correlated phases to the recently developed method of randomized dynamical decoupling pulse sequences [Physical Review Letters 122, 200403 (2019)] can improve its performance in quantum sensing. In particular, by correlating the relative phases of basic pulse units in dynamical decoupling sequences, we are able to improve the suppression of the signal distortion due to $π$ pulse imperfections and spurious responses due to finite-width $π$ pulses. This enhances selectivity of quantum sensors such as those based on NV centers in diamond.
Identifying weakly coupled nuclear spins around single electron spins is a key step of implementing quantum information processing using coupled electron-nuclei spin systems or sensing like single spin nuclear magnetic resonance detection using diamond defect spins. Dynamical decoupling control of the center electron spin with periodic pulse sequences [e.g., the Carre-Purcell-Meiboom-Gill (CPMG) sequence] has been successfully used to identify single nuclear spins and to resolve structure of nuclear spin clusters. Here, we design a new type of pulse sequences by replacing the repetition unit (…
We study the parametric interaction between a single Nitrogen-Vacancy electronic spin and a diamond mechanical resonator in which the spin is embedded. Coupling between spin and oscillator is achieved by crystal strain, which is generated upon actuation of the oscillator and which parametrically modulates the spins' energy splitting. Under coherent microwave driving of the spin, this parametric drive leads to a locking of the spin Rabi frequency to the oscillator mode in the megahertz range. Both the Rabi oscillation decay time and the inhomogeneous spin dephasing time increase by two orders o…
We propose a scheme for sensing of an oscillating field in systems with large inhomogeneous broadening and driving field variation by applying sequences of phased, adiabatic, chirped pulses. The latter act as a double filter for dynamical decoupling, where the adiabatic changes of the mixing angle during the pulses rectify the signal and partially remove frequency noise. The sudden changes between the pulses act as instantaneous $π$ pulses in the adiabatic basis for additional noise suppression. We also use the pulses' phases to correct for other errors, e.g., due to non-adiabatic couplings. O…
Multipulse sequences based on Carr-Purcell decoupling are frequently used for narrow-band signal detection in single spin magnetometry. We have analyzed the behavior of multipulse sensing sequences under real-world conditions, including finite pulse durations and the presence of detunings. We find that these non-idealities introduce harmonics to the filter function, allowing additional frequencies to pass the filter. In particular, we find that the XY family of sequences can generate signals at the 2fac, 4fac and 8fac harmonics and their odd subharmonics, where fac is the ac signal frequency. …
Resilience to noise and to decoherence processes is an important ingredient for the implementation of quantum information processing, and quantum technologies. To this end, techniques such as pulsed and continuous dynamical decoupling have been proposed to reduce noise effects. In this paper, we suggest a new approach to implementing continuous dynamical decoupling techniques, that uses an extra control parameter; namely, the ability to shape the time dependence of the detuning. This approach reduces the complexity of the experimental setup, such that we are only left with noise originating fr…
Quantum sensors, qubits sensitive to external fields, have become powerful detectors for various small acoustic and electromagnetic fields. A major key to their success have been dynamical decoupling protocols which enhance sensitivity to weak oscillating (AC) signals. Currently, those methods are limited to signal frequencies below a few MHz. Here we harness a quantum-optical effect, the Mollow triplet splitting of a strongly driven two-level system, to overcome this limitation. We microscopically understand this effect as a pulsed dynamical decoupling protocol and find that it enables sensit…
The Ground-state criticality of many-body systems is a resource for quantum-enhanced sensing, namely the Heisenberg precision limit, provided that one has access to the whole system. We show that for partial accessibility, the sensing capabilities of a block of spins in the ground state reduces to the sub-Heisenberg limit. To compensate for this, we drive the hamiltonian periodically and use a local steady-state for quantum sensing. Remarkably, the steady-state sensing shows a significant enhancement in precision compared to the ground state and even achieves super-Heisenberg scaling for low f…
Sensing single nuclear spins is a central challenge in magnetic resonance based imaging techniques. Although different methods and especially diamond defect based sensing and imaging techniques in principle have shown sufficient sensitivity, signals from single nuclear spins are usually too weak to be distinguished from background noise. Here, we present the detection and identification of remote single C-13 nuclear spins embedded in nuclear spin baths surrounding a single electron spins of a nitrogen-vacancy centre in diamond. With dynamical decoupling control of the centre electron spin, the…
We show that the time-dependence of electromagnetic field in a parametrically modulated cavity can be effectively analyzed using a $Floquet$ $map$. The map relates the field states separated by one period of the drive; iterative application of the map allows to determine field configuration after arbitrary number of drive periods. For resonant and near-resonant drives, the map has stable and unstable fixed points, which are the loci of infinite energy concentration in the long time limit. The Floquet map method can be applied both to classical and quantum massless field problems, including the…
Ensembles of dopants have widespread applications in quantum technology. The miniaturization of corresponding devices is however hampered by dipolar interactions that reduce the coherence at increased dopant density. We theoretically and experimentally investigate this limitation. We find that dynamical decoupling can alleviate, but not fully eliminate, the decoherence in crystals with strong anisotropic spin-spin interactions. Our findings can be generalized to all quantum systems with anisotropic g-factor used for quantum sensing, microwave-to-optical conversion, and quantum memory.
Nitrogen-vacancy ensembles promise an unprecedented combination of sensitivity and resolution for magnetic field sensing under ambient conditions. However, their full sensing potential is limited by the inhomogeneous degradation of their collective coherence, while dynamical-decoupling limits sensing to the detection of AC-fields. Here we propose using the recently demonstrated cavity-protection effect for room-temperature, ensemble-based DC metrology. We identify a parameter space where strong-coupling can persist at room temperature and where the dressed states are limited solely by the deph…
