Nuclear-spin-dependent coherent population trapping of single nitrogen vacancy centers in diamond

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates nuclear-spin-dependent coherent population trapping in single nitrogen vacancy centers in diamond, providing a new method to measure hyperfine structure and dynamic Stark splitting with high sensitivity.

Contribution

It introduces a novel CPT technique that directly measures hyperfine splitting in NV centers, offering an alternative to traditional magnetic resonance methods.

Findings

Nuclear-spin-dependent CPT effectively measures hyperfine splitting.

CPT spectral response reveals dynamic Stark splitting.

Method enhances sensitivity for probing NV center energy levels.

Abstract

Coherent population trapping (CPT) provides a highly sensitive means for probing the energy level structure of an atomic system. For a nitrogen vacancy center in diamond, the CPT offers an alternative to the standard optically-detected magnetic resonance method for measuring the hyperfine structure of the electronic ground states. We show that the nuclear spin dependent CPT measures directly the hyperfine splitting of these states due to the 14N nuclear spin. The CPT spectral response obtained in the presence of a strong microwave field, resonant or nearly resonant with a ground state spin transition, maps out the dynamic Stark splitting induced by the coherent spin excitation.