QUROPE Quantum Information Processing and Communication in Europe

Precision sensing, and in particular high precision magnetometry, is a central goal of research into quantum technologies. For magnetometers often trade-offs exist between sensitivity, spatial resolution, and frequency range. The precision, and thus the sensitivity of magnetometry scales as 1/(T2)1/2 with the phase coherence time, T2, of the sensing system playing the role of a key determinant.

The impact of control sequences on the environmental coupling of a quantum system can be described in terms of a filter. Here we analyze how the coherent evolution of two interacting spins subject to periodic control pulses, using the example of a nitrogen vacancy center coupled to a nuclear spin, can be described in the filter framework in both the weak- and the strong-coupling limit. A universal functional dependence around the filter resonances then allows for tuning the coupling type and strength.

We experimentally demonstrate single-spin magnetometry with multipulse sensing sequences. The use of multipulse sequences can greatly increase the sensing time per measurement shot, resulting in enhanced ac magnetic field sensitivity. We theoretically derive and experimentally verify the optimal number of sensing cycles, for which the effects of decoherence and increased sensing time are balanced. We perform these experiments for oscillating magnetic fields with fixed phase as well as for fields with random phase.

Controlling the interaction of a single quantum system with its environment is a fundamental challenge in quantum science and technology. We strongly suppressed the coupling of a single spin in diamond with the surrounding spin bath by using double-axis dynamical decoupling. The coherence was preserved for arbitrary quantum states, as verified by quantum process tomography. The resulting coherence time enhancement followed a general scaling with the number of decoupling pulses.