Stroboscopic X-ray Diffraction Microscopy of Dynamic Strain in Diamond Thin-film Bulk Acoustic Resonators for Quantum Control of Nitrogen Vacancy Centers

Bulk-mode acoustic waves in a crystalline material exert lattice strain through the thickness of the sample, which couples to the spin Hamiltonian of defect-based qubits such as the nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center defect in diamond. This mechanism has been previously harnessed for unconventional quantu...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2023-12
Main Authors: D'Addario, Anthony, Kuan, Johnathan, Opondo, Noah F, Erturk, Ozan, Zhou, Tao, Bhave, Sunil A, Holt, Martin V, Fuchs, Gregory D
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acoustic waves
Acoustics
Amplitudes
Angular momentum
Bulk acoustic wave devices
Crystal defects
Diamond films
Diamonds
Diffraction patterns
Electromagnetic wave filters
Far fields
Lattice strain
Lattice vacancies
Microscopy
Microwave filters
Nitrogen
Optical measurement
Position measurement
Qubits (quantum computing)
Resonators
Thickness
Thin films
Wave diffraction
X-ray diffraction
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Summary:Bulk-mode acoustic waves in a crystalline material exert lattice strain through the thickness of the sample, which couples to the spin Hamiltonian of defect-based qubits such as the nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center defect in diamond. This mechanism has been previously harnessed for unconventional quantum spin control, spin decoherence protection, and quantum sensing. Bulk-mode acoustic wave devices are also important in the microelectronics industry as microwave filters. A key challenge in both applications is a lack of appropriate operando microscopy tools for quantifying and visualizing gigahertz-frequency dynamic strain. In this work, we directly image acoustic strain within NV center-coupled diamond thin-film bulk acoustic wave resonators using stroboscopic scanning hard X-ray diffraction microscopy at the Advanced Photon Source. The far-field scattering patterns of the nano-focused X-ray diffraction encode strain information entirely through the illuminated thickness of the resonator. These patterns have a real-space spatial variation that is consistent with the bulk strain's expected modal distribution and a momentum-space angular variation from which the strain amplitude can be quantitatively deduced. We also perform optical measurements of strain-driven Rabi precession of the NV center spin ensemble, providing an additional quantitative measurement of the strain amplitude. As a result, we directly measure the NV spin-stress coupling parameter \(b = 2.73(2)\) MHz/GPa by correlating these measurements at the same spatial position and applied microwave power. Our results demonstrate a unique technique for directly imaging AC lattice strain in micromechanical structures and provide a direct measurement of a fundamental constant for the NV center defect spin Hamiltonian.
ISSN:2331-8422