Universal dynamical decoupling of a single solid-state spin from a spin bath

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that double-axis dynamical decoupling significantly prolongs the coherence of a single solid-state spin in diamond by suppressing environmental interactions, with coherence times enhanced over 25 times using up to 136 pulses.

Contribution

It introduces a universal dynamical decoupling method that effectively isolates a single solid-state spin from its environment, enabling arbitrary quantum state preservation.

Findings

Coherence time increased more than 25 times with 136 pulses.

No observed limit to decoupling effectiveness up to 136 pulses.

Coherence enhancement scales with the number of decoupling pulses.

Abstract

Controlling the interaction of a single quantum system with its environment is a fundamental challenge in quantum science and technology. We dramatically suppress the coupling of a single spin in diamond with the surrounding spin bath by using double-axis dynamical decoupling. The coherence is preserved for arbitrary quantum states, as verified by quantum process tomography. The resulting coherence time enhancement is found to follow a general scaling with the number of decoupling pulses. No limit is observed for the decoupling action up to 136 pulses, for which the coherence time is enhanced more than 25 times compared to spin echo. These results uncover a new regime for experimental quantum science and allow to overcome a major hurdle for implementing quantum information protocols.