2010•Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH) (Harvard University)Open access
Coherence of Nitrogen-Vacancy Electronic Spin Ensembles in Diamond
Paul L. Stanwix, Linh Pham, Jeronimo R. Maze, David Le Sage, T. Yeung, Paola Cappellaro, Philip Hemmer, Amir Yacoby, Mikhail D. Lukin, Ronald Lee Walsworth
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Abstract
We present an experimental and theoretical study of electronic spin decoherence in ensembles of nitrogen-vacancy (NV) color centers in bulk high-purity diamond at room temperature. Under appropriate conditions, we find ensemble NV spin coherence times (T_2) comparable to that of single NVs, with T_2 > 600 microseconds for a sample with natural abundance of 13C and paramagnetic impurity density ~10^15 cm^(-3). We also observe a sharp decrease of the coherence time with misalignment of the static magnetic field relative to the NV electronic spin axis, consistent with theoretical modeling of NV coupling to a 13C nuclear spin bath. The long coherence times and increased signal-to-noise provided by room-temperature NV ensembles will aid many applications of NV centers in precision magnetometry and quantum information.