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A quantum memory intrinsic to single nitrogen–vacancy centres in diamond

Nature Physics volume 7, pages 789–793 (2011)Cite this article

Abstract

A quantum memory, composed of a long-lived qubit coupled to each processing qubit, is important to building a scalable platform for quantum information science. These two qubits should be connected by a fast and high-fidelity operation to store and retrieve coherent quantum states. Here, we demonstrate a room-temperature quantum memory based on the spin of the nitrogen nucleus intrinsic to each nitrogen–vacancy (NV) centre in diamond. We perform coherent storage of a single NV centre electronic spin in a single nitrogen nuclear spin using Landau–Zener transitions across a hyperfine-mediated avoided level crossing. By working outside the asymptotic regime, we demonstrate coherent state transfer in as little as 120 ns with total storage fidelity of 88±6%. This work demonstrates the use of a quantum memory that is compatible with scaling as the nitrogen nucleus is deterministically present in each NV centre defect.

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Figure 1: Structure and manipulation.
Figure 2: Single electron–nuclear storage operations.
Figure 3: Coherent nuclear spin storage.
Figure 4: Multi-axis storage.
Figure 5: Nuclear spin coherence time.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank H. Ribeiro for helpful comments on the theory. We gratefully acknowledge support from the AFOSR, ARO and DARPA. G.B. acknowledges funding from DFG within SFB767, from the Konstanz Center for Applied Photonics (CAP), and from the Research Initiative UltraQuantum.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Spintronics and Quantum Computation, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA

    G. D. Fuchs, P. V. Klimov & D. D. Awschalom

  2. Department of Physics, University of Konstanz, D-78457 Konstanz, Germany

    G. Burkard

Authors
  1. G. D. Fuchs
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  2. G. Burkard
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  3. P. V. Klimov
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  4. D. D. Awschalom
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Contributions

The experiment was designed and analysed by G.D.F., G.B., P.V.K. and D.D.A. Measurements were made by G.D.F. and P.V.K. Samples were designed and fabricated by G.D.F. All authors contributed to writing the paper.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to D. D. Awschalom.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Fuchs, G., Burkard, G., Klimov, P. et al. A quantum memory intrinsic to single nitrogen–vacancy centres in diamond. Nature Phys 7, 789–793 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys2026

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