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Quantum Orbital-State Control of a Neutral Nitrogen-Vacancy Center at Millikelvin Temperatures

Hodaka Kurokawa1,*, Shintaro Nakazato2, Toshiharu Makino1,3, Hiromitsu Kato1,3, Shinobu Onoda1,4, Yuhei Sekiguchi1, and Hideo Kosaka1,2,†

  • *Contact author: kurokawa-hodaka-hm@ynu.ac.jp
  • †Contact author: kosaka-hideo-yp@ynu.ac.jp
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Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 016902 – Published 2 July, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/m1qx-xlpd

Abstract

A neutral nitrogen-vacancy center (NV0) is promising for realizing strong coupling with a single microwave photon due to its large electric field sensitivity, although it is susceptible to environmental phonon noise at 5 K. Decreasing the temperature to 15 mK results in a tenfold increase in orbital relaxation time compared to that at 5 K. Dynamical decoupling pulses significantly increase the orbital coherence time to more than 1.6  μs, representing a 30-fold improvement compared to that without decoupling pulses. Based on these results, a single NV0 can reach the strong coupling regime when coupled with a high-impedance microwave resonator, thus opening up the possibility of microwave quantum electrodynamics using a single optically active defect center in diamond.

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Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 016902– Published 2 July, 2025
  • Received 27 November 2024
  • Revised 22 January 2025
  • Accepted 21 May 2025
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