Letter abstract
Nature Materials 8, 383 - 387 (2009)
Published online: 6 April 2009 | Corrected online: 14 April 2009 | doi:10.1038/nmat2420
Subject Categories: Electronic materials | Optical, photonic and optoelectronic materials | Nanoscale materials
Ultralong spin coherence time in isotopically engineered diamond
Gopalakrishnan Balasubramanian1, Philipp Neumann1, Daniel Twitchen2, Matthew Markham2, Roman Kolesov1, Norikazu Mizuochi1,3, Junichi Isoya3, Jocelyn Achard4, Johannes Beck1, Julia Tissler1, Vincent Jacques1, Philip R. Hemmer5, Fedor Jelezko1 & Jörg Wrachtrup1
As quantum mechanics ventures into the world of applications and engineering, materials science faces the necessity to design matter to quantum grade purity. For such materials, quantum effects define their physical behaviour and open completely new (quantum) perspectives for applications. Carbon-based materials are particularly good examples, highlighted by the fascinating quantum properties of, for example, nanotubes1 or graphene2. Here, we demonstrate the synthesis and application of ultrapure isotopically controlled single-crystal chemical vapour deposition (CVD) diamond with a remarkably low concentration of paramagnetic impurities. The content of nuclear spins associated with the 13C isotope was depleted to 0.3% and the concentration of other paramagnetic defects was measured to be <1013 cm-3. Being placed in such a spin-free lattice, single electron spins show the longest room-temperature spin dephasing times ever observed in solid-state systems (T2=1.8 ms). This benchmark will potentially allow observation of coherent coupling between spins separated by a few tens of nanometres, making it a versatile material for room-temperature quantum information processing devices. We also show that single electron spins in the same isotopically engineered CVD diamond can be used to detect external magnetic fields with a sensitivity reaching 4 nT Hz-1/2 and subnanometre spatial resolution.
- 3 Physikalisches Institut, Universität Stuttgart, 70550 Stuttgart, Germany
- Element Six Ltd, King's Ride Park, Ascot SL5 8BP, UK
- Graduate School of Library, Information and Media Studies, University of Tsukuba, 1-2 Kasuga, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8550, Japan
- LIMHP/CNRS, Université Paris 13, 93430 Villetaneuse, France
- Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843, USA
Correspondence to: Fedor Jelezko1 e-mail: f.jelezko@physik.uni-stuttgart.de
Correspondence to: Jörg Wrachtrup1 e-mail: wrachtrup@physik.uni-stuttgart.de
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