Spin decoherence and electron spin bath noise of a nitrogen-vacancy center in diamond

TL;DR

This paper models the decoherence of a nitrogen-vacancy center in diamond caused by surrounding nitrogen electron spins, revealing how spin concentration and configuration affect coherence times and noise spectra, guiding decoherence suppression strategies.

Contribution

It introduces a P-representation simulation method to analyze NV center decoherence and noise spectra, providing insights into the dependence on spin bath configuration and concentration.

Findings

Decoherence time and free-induction decay depend on nitrogen spin configuration.

Decoherence and dephasing rates increase linearly with nitrogen spin concentration.

Noise spectrum extraction offers pathways to optimize decoherence suppression.

Abstract

We theoretically investigate spin decoherence of a single nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond. Using the spin coherent state P-representation method, coherence evolution of the NV center surrounded by nitrogen electron spins (N) is simulated. We find that spin decoherence time as well as free-induction decay of the NV center depend on the spatial configuration of N spins. Both the spin decoherence rate (1/T2) and dephasing rate (1/T2*) of the NV center increase linearly with the concentration of the N spins. Using the P-representation method, we also demonstrate extracting noise spectrum of the N spin bath, which will provide promising pathways for designing an optimum pulse sequence to suppress the decoherence in diamond.