Near-Infrared-Assisted Charge Control and Spin Readout of the Nitrogen-Vacancy Center in Diamond

TL;DR

This paper introduces all-optical protocols leveraging near-infrared light to significantly improve charge state initialization and spin readout fidelity of nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond, enabling faster and more accurate quantum measurements.

Contribution

It presents novel multi-photon absorption-based methods for charge and spin control in NV centers, achieving high charge state populations and enhanced spin readout fidelity.

Findings

Over 90% negative charge state population achieved

6-fold increase in single-shot spin measurement SNR

Predicted orders-of-magnitude speedup in quantum sensing applications

Abstract

We utilize nonlinear absorption to design all-optical protocols that improve both charge state initialization and spin readout for the nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond. Non-monotonic variations in the equilibrium charge state as a function of visible and near-infrared (NIR) optical power are attributed to competing multiphoton absorption processes. In certain regimes, multicolor illumination enhances the steady-state population of the NV's negative charge state above 90%. At higher NIR intensities, selective ionization of the singlet manifold facilitates a protocol for spin-to-charge conversion that dramatically enhances the spin readout fidelity. We demonstrate a 6-fold increase in the signal-to-noise ratio for single-shot spin measurements and predict an orders-of-magnitude experimental speedup over traditional methods for emerging applications in magnetometry and quantum information science using NV spins.