Ultrafast electronic read-out of diamond NV centers coupled to graphene

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates ultrafast electronic read-out of diamond NV centers coupled to graphene, enabling detection of nonradiative transfer processes and control of spin states with picosecond resolution, advancing quantum sensing and spintronics.

Contribution

It introduces a method to electrically detect NV center spins via nonradiative transfer to graphene with picosecond resolution, combining quantum sensing with ultrafast electronics.

Findings

Electronic detection of NV center spins achieved.

Nonradiative transfer to graphene can be controlled by ESR.

Potential for ultrafast quantum sensing and spintronics applications.

Abstract

Nonradiative transfer processes are often regarded as loss channels for an optical emitter1, since they are inherently difficult to be experimentally accessed. Recently, it has been shown that emitters, such as fluorophores and nitrogen vacancy centers in diamond, can exhibit a strong nonradiative energy transfer to graphene. So far, the energy of the transferred electronic excitations has been considered to be lost within the electron bath of the graphene. Here, we demonstrate that the trans-ferred excitations can be read-out by detecting corresponding currents with picosecond time resolution. We electrically detect the spin of nitrogen vacancy centers in diamond electronically and con-trol the nonradiative transfer to graphene by electron spin resonance. Our results open the avenue for incorporating nitrogen vacancy centers as spin qubits into ultrafast electronic circuits and for harvesting non-radiative transfer processes electronically.