Coherent control of a strongly driven silicon vacancy optical transition in diamond

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates coherent control of a silicon vacancy center in diamond under strong laser driving, observing Rabi oscillations, Mollow triplet, and Autler-Townes splitting, with implications for quantum information processing.

Contribution

It provides the first experimental demonstration of coherent optical control of a strongly driven SiV center in diamond, including observation of key quantum phenomena.

Findings

Observation of time-resolved Rabi oscillations

Detection of Mollow triplet spectrum

Confirmation of Autler-Townes splitting

Abstract

The ability to prepare, optically read out and coherently control single quantum states is a key requirement for quantum information processing. Optically active solid state emitters have emerged as promising candidates with their prospects for on chip integration as quantum nodes and sources of coherent photons for connecting these nodes. Under strongly driving resonant laser field, such quantum emitter can exhibit quantum behavior such as Autler-Townes splitting and Mollow triplet spectrum. Here we demonstrate coherent control of a strongly driven optical transition in silicon vacancy (SiV) center in diamond. Rapid optical detection of photons enabled the observation of time resolved coherent Rabi oscillations and the Mollow triplet from an optical transition of a single SiV defect. Detection with a probing transition further confirmed Autler-Townes splitting generated by a strong laser field. Coherence time of the emitted photons is shown to be comparable to its lifetime and robust under very strong driving laser field, which is promising for generation of indistinguishable photons.