Optically detected nuclear quadrupolar interaction of 14N in nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a sensitive, experimentally simple method to detect the nuclear quadrupolar interaction of 14N in NV centers in diamond using electron spin echo envelope modulation, with strong agreement between theory, simulation, and experiment.

Contribution

The study introduces a novel, straightforward technique for detecting nuclear quadrupolar interactions in NV centers, expanding tools for spin system analysis.

Findings

Successful detection of 14N nuclear quadrupolar interaction.

Excellent agreement between theoretical, simulated, and experimental results.

Method applicable to similar spin systems.

Abstract

We report sensitive detection of the nuclear quadrupolar interaction of the 14N nuclear spin of the nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center using the electron spin echo envelope modulation technique. We applied a weak transverse magnetic field to the spin system so that certain forbidden transitions became weakly allowed due to second-order effects involving the nonsecular terms of the hyperfine interaction. The weak transitions cause modulation of the electron spin-echo signal, and a theoretical analysis suggests that the modulation frequency is primarily determined by the nuclear quadrupolar frequency; numerical simulations confirm the analytical results and show excellent quantitative agreement with experiments. This is an experimentally simple method of detecting quadrupolar interactions, and it can be used to study spin systems with an energy structure similar to that of the nitrogen vacancy center.