Orbital state manipulation of a diamond nitrogen-vacancy center using a mechanical resonator

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how a gigahertz-frequency diamond mechanical resonator can coherently control the orbital states of a nitrogen-vacancy center, enabling advanced quantum state manipulation and revealing multi-phonon interactions.

Contribution

It introduces a method to coherently manipulate NV center orbital states using a mechanical resonator, revealing multi-phonon interactions and Rabi splitting phenomena.

Findings

Observation of coherent Raman sidebands up to ninth order

Detection of orbital-phonon interactions causing multi-phonon Rabi splitting

Quantum model successfully reproduces experimental spectroscopic features

Abstract

We study the resonant optical transitions of a single nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center that is coherently dressed by a strong mechanical drive. Using a gigahertz-frequency diamond mechanical resonator that is strain-coupled to an NV center's orbital states, we demonstrate coherent Raman sidebands out to the ninth order and orbital-phonon interactions that mix the two excited-state orbital branches. These interactions are spectroscopically revealed through a multi-phonon Rabi splitting of the orbital branches which scales as a function of resonator driving amplitude, and is successfully reproduced in a quantum model. Finally, we discuss the application of mechanical driving to engineering NV center orbital states.