Gyroscopic stability for nanoparticles in Stern-Gerlach interferometry and spin contrast
Phys. Rev. A 112, 013315 – Published 25 July, 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/4xvz-gnk7
Abstract
There is a severe impediment in Stern-Gerlach interferometry with a spin-embedded nanoparticle. This is because particle rotation creates a significant mismatch of the wave function of angular degrees of freedom during the creation and recombination of the spatial superposition, resulting in an inferior visibility contrast. We show that imparting angular momentum along the direction of a defect, such as the nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center, during the Stern-Gerlach interferometry provides excellent gyroscopic quantum stability to a nanodiamond, which opens up a way to maintain significant visibility in the quantum interference. The spin contrast improves by many folds for a wide-ranging value of the initial angular momentum, e.g., Hz for a mass of order -kg nanodiamond. Our scheme is independent of the material and is pertinent to any nanoparticle that can be used to create massive and large spatial superpositions with an embedded spin defect.
