Coherent, mechanical control of a single electronic spin

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the first coherent mechanical control of a single electronic spin at room temperature, using a driven mechanical resonator to manipulate the spin state via magnetic coupling, enabling advanced quantum sensing applications.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method for coherent mechanical control of a single spin using a driven resonator, advancing quantum control techniques under ambient conditions.

Findings

Achieved coherent control of a single NV center spin via mechanical motion.

Demonstrated synchronization of spin protocols with mechanical oscillations.

Enabled sensitive nanoscale magnetometry using mechanical spin control.

Abstract

The ability to control and manipulate spins via electrical, magnetic and optical means has generated numerous applications in metrology and quantum information science in recent years. A promising alternative method for spin manipulation is the use of mechanical motion, where the oscillation of a mechanical resonator can be magnetically coupled to a spins magnetic dipole, which could enable scalable quantum information architectures9 and sensitive nanoscale magnetometry. To date, however, only population control of spins has been realized via classical motion of a mechanical resonator. Here, we demonstrate coherent mechanical control of an individual spin under ambient conditions using the driven motion of a mechanical resonator that is magnetically coupled to the electronic spin of a single nitrogen-vacancy (NV) color center in diamond. Coherent control of this hybrid mechanical/spin system is achieved by synchronizing pulsed spin-addressing protocols (involving optical and radiofrequency fields) to the motion of the driven oscillator, which allows coherent mechanical manipulation of both the population and phase of the spin via motion-induced Zeeman shifts of the NV spins energy. We demonstrate applications of this coherent mechanical spin-control technique to sensitive nanoscale scanning magnetometry.