Measurement and Control of Single Nitrogen-Vacancy Center Spins above 600 K

TL;DR

This study investigates the behavior of single nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond at high temperatures up to 700 K, revealing limitations in optical control due to nonradiative processes and highlighting their potential as nanoscale thermometers.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the temperature-dependent spin dynamics of NV centers and demonstrates their stable inhomogeneous spin lifetime up to 625 K.

Findings

Optical addressability is limited above 550 K due to nonradiative quenching.

The energy difference between electronic states is approximately 0.8 eV.

Inhomogeneous spin lifetime remains temperature independent up to 625 K.

Abstract

We study the spin and orbital dynamics of single nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond between room temperature and 700 K. We find that the ability to optically address and coherently control single spins above room temperature is limited by nonradiative processes that quench the NV center's fluorescence-based spin readout between 550 and 700 K. Combined with electronic structure calculations, our measurements indicate that the energy difference between the 3E and 1A1 electronic states is approximately 0.8 eV. We also demonstrate that the inhomogeneous spin lifetime (T2*) is temperature independent up to at least 625 K, suggesting that single NV centers could be applied as nanoscale thermometers over a broad temperature range.