Development of a high quality thin diamond membrane with embedded nitrogen-vacancy centers for hybrid spin-mechanical quantum systems

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel high-quality thin diamond membrane with embedded nitrogen-vacancy centers, enabling advanced hybrid quantum systems for sensing and quantum information applications.

Contribution

It introduces a new diamond architecture with embedded NVCs, demonstrating coupling between mechanical vibrations and spin states for quantum technologies.

Findings

Successful fabrication of a high-quality thin diamond membrane

Demonstration of spin-mechanical coupling via Hahn echo signals

Potential applications in quantum sensing and information processing

Abstract

Hybrid quantum systems (HQSs) have attracted several research interests in the last years. In this Letter, we report on the design, fabrication, and characterization of a novel diamond architecture for HQSs that consists of a high quality thin circular diamond membrane with embedded near-surface nitrogen-vacancy centers (NVCs). To demonstrate this architecture, we employed the NVCs by means of their optical and spin interfaces as nanosensors of the motion of the membrane under static pressure and in-resonance vibration, as well as the residual stress of the membrane. Driving the membrane at its fundamental resonance mode, we observed coupling of this vibrational mode to the spin of the NVCs by Hahn echo signal. Our realization of this architecture will enable futuristic HQS-based applications in diamond piezometry and vibrometry, as well as spin-mechanical and mechanically mediated spin-spin coupling in quantum information science.