Coherent electric field control of orbital state of a neutral nitrogen-vacancy center

• Published in: Nature communications 2024-05, Vol.15 (1), p.4039-7, Article 4039
• Main Authors: Kurokawa, Hodaka, Wakamatsu, Keidai, Nakazato, Shintaro, Makino, Toshiharu, Kato, Hiromitsu, Sekiguchi, Yuhei, Kosaka, Hideo
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 639/624/400/1100; 639/766/36/1122; 639/766/483/2802; Coherence; Color centers; Diamonds; Dilution; Electric fields; Electrons; Experiments; Humanities and Social Sciences; Hybrid systems; Magnetic fields; multidisciplinary; Nitrogen; Qubits (quantum computing); Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Superconductivity
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-47973-3

The coherent control of the orbital state is crucial for realizing the extremely-low power manipulation of the color centers in diamonds. Herein, a neutrally-charged nitrogen-vacancy center, NV 0 , is proposed as an ideal system for orbital control using electric fields. The electric susceptibility in the ground state of NV 0 is estimated, and found to be comparable to that in the excited state of NV − . Also, the coherent control of the orbital states of NV 0 is demonstrated. The required power for orbital control is three orders of magnitude smaller than that for spin control, highlighting the potential for interfacing a superconducting qubit operated in a dilution refrigerator. Color centers in diamond have been proposed as a link between remote superconducting units in hybrid quantum systems, where their orbital degree of freedom is utilized. Here the authors report coherent electric-field control of the orbital state of a neutral NV center in diamond.