Spin coherence times of point defects in two-dimensional materials from first principles

TL;DR

This study uses first-principles calculations to predict spin coherence times of defect centers in 2D materials, identifying candidates with long coherence suitable for quantum technologies.

Contribution

It introduces a systematic first-principles approach to evaluate spin coherence times in 2D materials and derives a simple predictive expression validated on unseen defect data.

Findings

Some defect centers exhibit exceptionally long spin coherence times.

Spin coherence time is mainly influenced by host nuclear spin properties.

A simple formula accurately estimates coherence times without complex calculations.

Abstract

The spin coherence times of 69 triplet defect centers in 45 different 2D host materials are calculated using the cluster correlation expansion (CCE) method with parameters of the spin Hamiltonian obtained from density functional theory (DFT). Several of the triplets are found to exhibit extraordinarily large spin coherence times making them interesting for quantum information processing. The dependence of the spin coherence time on various factors, including the hyperfine coupling strength, the dipole-dipole coupling, and the nuclear g-factors, are systematically investigated. The analysis shows that the spin coherence time is insensitive to the atomistic details of the defect center and rather is dictated by the nuclear spin properties of the host material. Symbolic regression is then used to derive a simple expression for spin coherence time, which is validated on a test set of 55 doublet defects unseen by the regression model. The simple expression permits order-of-magnitude estimates of the spin coherence time without expensive first principles calculations.